GPRS in the context of "IPAQ"

A value-added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-core services, or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business. In the telecommunications industry, on a conceptual level, value-added services add value to the standard service offering, spurring subscribers to use their phone more and allowing the operator to drive up their average revenue per user. For mobile phones, technologies like SMS, MMS and data access were historically usually considered value-added services, but in recent years SMS, MMS and data access have more and more become core services, and VAS therefore has begun to exclude those services.

Mobile VAS services can be categorized into:

The iPhone (also known as the iPhone 1st generation or iPhone 2G) is a smartphone developed and marketed by Apple as the first device in the iPhone lineup of smartphones. It features a Samsung S5L8900 SoC (90 nm), a 3.5 in multi-touch display, and a web browser (Safari). After years of rumors and speculation, it was officially announced on January 9, 2007, and was released in the United States on June 29, 2007.

Development of the iPhone began in 2005 and continued in secrecy until its public unveiling at Macworld 2007. The device broke with prevailing mobile phone designs by eliminating most physical hardware buttons, and relying on a finger-friendly touchscreen interface that did not need a stylus. The iPhone featured quad-band GSM cellular connectivity with GPRS and EDGE support for data transfer, and it used continuous internet access and onboard processing to support features unrelated to voice communication.

BlackBerry (BB) is a discontinued brand of mobile devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry was a two-way pager, Inter@ctive Pager 950, launched in 1999 in North America, running on the Mobitex network (later also DataTAC) and became very popular because of its "always on" state and ability to send and receive email messages wirelessly. The BlackBerry pioneered push notifications and popularized the practice of "thumb typing" using its QWERTY keyboard, something that would become a trademark feature of the line.

In its early years, the BlackBerry proved to be a major advantage over the (typically) one-way communication of conventional pagers and it also removed the need for users to tether to personal computers. It became especially used in the corporate world in the US and Canada. RIM debuted the BlackBerry in Europe in September 2001, but it had less appeal there where text messaging using SMS was more established. With the advancement of cellular technology, RIM released in 2002 the first BlackBerry cell phone, the BlackBerry 5810, that ran on the GSM network and used GPRS for its email and web capabilities. RIM also gained a reputation for secure communications, which led to the US government becoming its biggest customer and making use of BlackBerry services.