https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone
> When Apple announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007,[38] it was sold only with AT&T (formerly Cingular) contracts in the United States.[32] After 18 months of negotiations, Steve Jobs reached an agreement with the wireless division of AT&T[39] to be the iPhone's exclusive carrier. Consumers were unable to use any other carrier without unlocking their device.
I don't know how they did it, but "life finds a way" ?
> I didn’t even use my iPhone in the US
So you can't really describe the experience for the several different US carriers which it didn't work on, and thus can't really say it worked on any other network. Verizon was a network it didn't work on, and thus fails the "any other network" standard you set earlier.
It worked on any GSM network. Tmobile for instance. Verizon and Sprint were the exceptions in the US, since they weren’t GSM.
It is not being pedantic to point out someone is saying something massively untrue.
Your comment makes it sound like anyone could just easily take an OG iPhone and run it on any network, but in reality, to US consumers it was only a few smaller networks and only after breaking an expensive contract. See how that's more than just a pedantic difference?
Compared to all the smartphones of the time, it was a slow toy with no apps and a 2G connection that was completely worthless
It looked nice though, and eventually it got an app store (unnoficially first), and the overall UX was a clear winner (nobody believed touch screens would ever replace blackberry style devices!)