It was a sign of the times, perhaps, that this year's Mobile World Congress was dominated by what was missing rather than what was on the stands.
And even more interesting was the fact that it wasn't Apple.
Samsung's announcement during MWC that the Galaxy S4 smartphone would be unveiled in New York on 14 March undercut every other big news at this year's show in Barcelona.
That didn't mean Samsung wasn't at the event - they still had a lot more to show, including an 8-inch Galaxy Note - which inspired curious looks, if not outright desire, amongst most of the tech press. Asus's 7-inch Fonepad also illustrated the sudden, spluttering trend for absolutely enormous mobile phones. Whether people want to buy them remains to be seen.
Sony, ZTE, Huawei and Nokia were among the other big companies who had new devices to show, but none made quite the splash managed by Samsung's so-far unseen flagship phone.
2013 was also a year in which low-end devices were able to shine. Whether it was low-cost Android phones, Ubuntu Touch, Firefox OS or Nokia's £13 phone, there was as much innovation at the bottom of the market as at the top.
So what do the stats say? According to Lissted, who analysed tweets by 619 journalists and bloggers, and 419 media outlets, Nokia was tweeted about more than any other company this year.
Samsung was second in their research of top tech terms, followed by Android, LG, Firefox, Asus, Galaxy, Huawei, Lumia and ZTE.
But what were our favourites of the show?