The original conversation was that Walmart was selling a $10 phone that was more powerful than the original iPhone which had been labelled by some in the press as the &quot;Jesus Phone&quot;. This offended the sensibilities of a number of iPhone owners who have argued a number of side points to refute that assertion. The article here pointed out how horrible the restrictions were on unlocking so you were &quot;trapped&quot; using Tracfones crappy service for at least a year. However, that fails to acknowledge that when it was first released, the iPhone could not be unlocked and many felt its biggest weakness was the crappy service from AT&amp;T (I certainly did).<p>So today, with some legislation help, unlocking phones is not quite as burdensome, and both Apple and Android makers have more carriers to choose from given the amount of business they &quot;swing&quot;. This LG phone and others like it are totally adequate smartphones. Which only serves to illustrate the chasm between where we started and where we are.<p>In alternate history speculation, had Microsoft released the Lumia 550 the same year that Apple released the iPhone? Microsoft would have outsold and out performed Apple in the smartphone market and Apple might never have gained the necessary momentum to fuel its growth. But we know that Balmer didn&#x27;t see it, and as an employee working at Google when Android was being developed, Google didn&#x27;t see it either. The original Android phone concepts were very much like Palm Pilots, not what you see today.