Steve Jobs might have wanted the early iPhones to rely extensively on cloud computing, which would have helped increase the utility and power of an iPhone without requiring all the computing and storage to be resident on the device. But it was simply too early in 2007. The networks were not fast enough, the cloud infrastructure and mobile apps capabilities were not available, either.
That will be easier in the 5G era, but not reach the level of infrastructure Jobs wanted to use until much fuller development of edge computing. To be sure, very low cost smartphones already are available in Asia.
At least in in principle, with robust edge computing deployed and fast, low-latency 5G networks, it might be possible to design smartphones and other devices that rely extensively on edge computing for most of their functionality, fulfilling a dream Steve Jobs had decades ago.
