The Infogear iPhone was an early internet appliance which never quite caught on. Perhaps it was ahead of its time or perhaps it was just a flawed idea. The name iPhone referred to the marriage of internet service and telephone. Unlike the popular Apple iPhone, this was a bulky desktop device which combined a touch screen with a landline phone and a slide out keyboard.

The device featured a classic telephone handset and keypad. It also included a 7.4 inch greyscale LCD touch screen and a miniature QWERTY keyboard which could be pulled out from the base of the device. It aimed to offer a useful combination of high end telephone functionality with Internet access for web browsing and email accounts.

The Infogear iPhone was sometimes known as the Cidco iPhone because the two companies produced the device in partnership. In 2000 Infogear was acquired by Cisco Systems and Cidco was sold off to Earthlink in 2001. Their iPhone was discontinued the same year.

It was considered quite an exciting device back in 1998 and it was released at just under $500 but it soon came down in price. Part of the problem with it was the fact that the first model required users to take on the Infogear or Cidco Internet service at a cost of $20 per month. Later they had the option of using a different Internet Service Provider but Infogear still charged $5 per month to use the iPhone.

It was an easy device to operate and the large touch screen with easy to read icons allowed people to quickly and efficiently connect to their email accounts or browse websites. It had the ability to support POP3 email accounts and the QWERTY keyboard was perfect for typing messages, although it was very small. You could purchase an alternative large keyboard from Infogear separately.

In addition to the web services it was also a high quality telephone with caller ID, speakerphone, three way calling, voicemail, speed dial and a directory built in. Unfortunately it operated via a slow modem and when a call came through the Internet connection would be automatically lost. The fact you couldn’t use the phone and the Internet at the same time was a major drawback. You would have to manually re-establish the Internet after each call.

As an alternative to a desktop PC for an office with limited space the Infogear iPhone may have made some sense. It would also represent value for people with limited Internet needs, coming in far below the cost of a PC and a phone with similar functionality.

Ultimately it was still a clunky device which didn’t offer much of a substitute for a PC. It could start up very quickly due to the lack of an operating system but it also lacked support for many Internet websites and was unable to cope with things like Java applets. It was also impossible to cut and paste from a website into an email using the device.

The device would surely have improved over time if given the chance. There were plans to allow Internet browsing and talking on the phone simultaneously for example but it simply wasn’t popular enough to merit continued development. You can still find the odd example available as a second hand curiosity but this is one device probably best left to die in peace.