To be honest, my experience was quite different: When the iPhone came out I had been using a Samsung smart phone for years. Actually, it was two devices in one: a phone and a Palm OS based PDA...
The major difference between it and the iPhone was the keyboard. The physical keyboard was easier to use -- but then it restricted the screen size to less than half of what it could be -- so it was a mixed blessing.
And, to be honest, the Palm OS PDA seemed to me to be more functional than anything on the iPhone: As a tech manager it kept track of everything I needed it to keep track of and did it very well. Then, later as I transitioned into healthcare, it stored medical reference books that I needed quick access to...
But, as time went on the Palm OS went into decline while Apple continued to improve the iPhone. And eventually I transitioned to iPhone...
You're entitled to like what you like regardless of what other people think of you. You used the Palm PDA for what you needed it for and when it no longer suited you, you changed products. It's just good to keep an open mind. So many people form an instant hate for products they have little experience with. How can a person simply look at a product and say it's no good without even trying it? It seems so many tech-heads form an opinion from things they really know nothing about and it's really not fair. Apple seems like a target for people when it comes to forming instant negative opinions when history shows they're mostly wrong. Always give new products a chance. Try it and if you don't like it, that's fine. I just don't like it when people say it's no good for everyone else.
Ah, for a moment I thought you are talking about people in this forum ridiculing Android smartphones, based on problems with 4 year old android phones without even trying them in 2016 or 2017!!! Ok, it is about tech media in your post. But isn't it true the other way round as well?
You're being too facile. I think you fail to appreciate that the disdain here for Android (and its hardware makers) runs much, much deeper than your presumed "problems with 4 year old phones."
You might wish to brush up on some of the history, especially the role that Schmidt played (with his being on Apple's board, his subsequent firing), Andy Rubin, the Apple-Samsung legal saga, etc.
I realize it's a popular meme to claim that Schmidt was stealing Apple trade secrets and taking them back to Google. And that's all it amounts to: A meme with not even circumstantial evidence behind it, much less anything factual. We all know there are no claims from Apple who unless Steve Jobs was incompetent and or/they are scared of Google would certainly have filed suit against them. Neither is likely. They sure didn't hesitate taking on Samsung, their biggest supplier, when they thought they were stealing iPhone tech. Sued HTC too when they thought they were getting a bit too close to iPhone design. But you are absolutely correct that casual readers or new members may well underestimate "the disdain here for Android and it's hardware makers". For some the hate is strong (says Palpatine). It does sometimes make discussions more difficult when dealing with emotional reactions instead of thoughtful ones but not at all impossible, and certainly worthwhile to have. This forum is one of the few public facing ones that I'm aware of with so many very highly educated industry veterans.
... and FWIW Alphabet still has an employee on Apple's board, but no one seems too terribly concerned about it.
Even professional techies were blindsided by the iPhone. Some of the opinion pieces and reviews are hilarious when read in today’s context. I remember the biggest boogeyman was the keyboard (much like the headphone jack is today). They laughed at the touch keyboard like they laugh today about the headphone jack. I keep this in mind today when I read some of the techie wannabe’s pronouncements about what Apple must do to stay relevant and survive.
The hostility by many techies towards Apple and its products like the iPhone, is often based on two main things. 1. The techie can use DOS, an old Blackberry / Windows Mobile so everyone else should do that too. Therefore Apple should not exist. The fallacy here is that a tech expert is = in skills to average folks. 2. But paradoxically, there is an elitism among many techies where they get to ridicule average users who struggle with command line computing or learning codes. Part of my computer suppport career was teaching people to use computers at work and at a university. I never accepted the cult of difficulty which many techies promoted. In the late 80s I could take someone who had never used a computer before and in an hour they had finished typing/saving/printing a paper for class. That was possible on a Mac but not a DOS PC.
I saw an iPhone the week it was launched. I used the multi-touch screen to browse the web. I knew at that moment that this was the future of mobile computing. Yes a techie could get their Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile device to do many different things. But for the casual user? The iPhone method was the future.
When the original iPhone came out, I was enamored with Motorola phones. My son asked me to purchase one for his birthday, so we went to the Apple Store. Once I saw the iPhone in person---picked it up, tried it out, asked questions--I realized this was a device that belonged 5 years in the future. I immediately fell in love with it, and we left the store with two iPhones. The love affair continues to this day.
All the comments heaping accolades on the original iPhone seem to forget that the original was really kind of basic -- at least compared to today's phones. Basic enough that, on a functional level, it was more or less on par with existing phones that (also) ran the the Palm OS. In fact, in many ways, the Palm OS provided increased functionality and user friendliness...
The iPhone didn't spring from the womb into what it is today, it evolved into it... While the foundation was there, the exploitation of that foundation took awhile...
That evolution is best illustrated by the evolution in size. Jobs famously issued an edict that people didn't want a large phone. They wanted a small (3.5" - 4.0") phone that was easy to use -- AS A PHONE. And that edict held all the way up to the iPhone 6 -- is that 12 generations? It was only later that the proliferation of apps (mostly games), maps, and web browsing shifted the iPhone from being primarily a phone that could do other things to a computer that you could use as a mobile phone.
None of that is meant to take credit from Jobs or from Apple: Jobs created a great product with a great foundation. Apple (mostly with Jobs) grew that great product into something that changed the world. Both the creation and its evolution are to be admired and honored for the brilliance, vision and commitment each took to achieve.
To be honest, my experience was quite different: When the iPhone came out I had been using a Samsung smart phone for years. Actually, it was two devices in one: a phone and a Palm OS based PDA...
The major difference between it and the iPhone was the keyboard. The physical keyboard was easier to use -- but then it restricted the screen size to less than half of what it could be -- so it was a mixed blessing.
And, to be honest, the Palm OS PDA seemed to me to be more functional than anything on the iPhone: As a tech manager it kept track of everything I needed it to keep track of and did it very well. Then, later as I transitioned into healthcare, it stored medical reference books that I needed quick access to...
But, as time went on the Palm OS went into decline while Apple continued to improve the iPhone. And eventually I transitioned to iPhone...
You're entitled to like what you like regardless of what other people think of you. You used the Palm PDA for what you needed it for and when it no longer suited you, you changed products. It's just good to keep an open mind. So many people form an instant hate for products they have little experience with. How can a person simply look at a product and say it's no good without even trying it? It seems so many tech-heads form an opinion from things they really know nothing about and it's really not fair. Apple seems like a target for people when it comes to forming instant negative opinions when history shows they're mostly wrong. Always give new products a chance. Try it and if you don't like it, that's fine. I just don't like it when people say it's no good for everyone else.
Ah, for a moment I thought you are talking about people in this forum ridiculing Android smartphones, based on problems with 4 year old android phones without even trying them in 2016 or 2017!!! Ok, it is about tech media in your post. But isn't it true the other way round as well?
You're being too facile. I think you fail to appreciate that the disdain here for Android (and its hardware makers) runs much, much deeper than your presumed "problems with 4 year old phones."
You might wish to brush up on some of the history, especially the role that Schmidt played (with his being on Apple's board, his subsequent firing), Andy Rubin, the Apple-Samsung legal saga, etc.
I realize it's a popular meme to claim that Schmidt was stealing Apple trade secrets and taking them back to Google. And that's all it amounts to: A meme with not even circumstantial evidence behind it, much less anything factual. We all know there are no claims from Apple who unless Steve Jobs was incompetent and or/they are scared of Google would certainly have filed suit against them. Neither is likely. They sure didn't hesitate taking on Samsung, their biggest supplier, when they thought they were stealing iPhone tech. Sued HTC too when they thought they were getting a bit too close to iPhone design. But you are absolutely correct that casual readers or new members may well underestimate "the disdain here for Android and it's hardware makers". For some the hate is strong (says Palpatine). It does sometimes make discussions more difficult when dealing with emotional reactions instead of thoughtful ones but not at all impossible, and certainly worthwhile to have. This forum is one of the few public facing ones that I'm aware of with so many very highly educated industry veterans.
... and FWIW Alphabet still has an employee on Apple's board, but no one seems too terribly concerned about it.
Tch,tch. One can always tell a revisionist Android apologist by the way they resort to smoke-screening what really came down in the early days of the iPhone. Yes, Google basically ripped off Apple's iOS. They got away with it by not making a direct profit (indirectly they made a huge profit) on Android, since they gave it away for free. Thus, Apple was forced to go after the hardware manufacturers, specifically Samsung, who were directly profiting off of the Android rip-off.
But what's new, eh? Windows was also a direct rip-off of Apple's OS. Not hard to do since Microsoft literally got it's start writing Word and Excel for the Macintosh long before they ported them over to Windows.
So yeah, many of us have nothing but disdain for Google. I personally have a bit less disdain for Microsoft these days since they at least made an effort to create their own OS from scratch this time around.
All the comments heaping accolades on the original iPhone seem to forget that the original was really kind of basic -- at least compared to today's phones. Basic enough that, on a functional level, it was more or less on par with existing phones that (also) ran the the Palm OS. In fact, in many ways, the Palm OS provided increased functionality and user friendliness...
The iPhone didn't spring from the womb into what it is today, it evolved into it... While the foundation was there, the exploitation of that foundation took awhile...
I don't think so. One of the biggest improvements was the browser. No other device used a full desktop-class browser capable of rendering web pages in as usable a way as a desktop OS. This was enabled both by the Safari browser itself and the multi-touch interface. Being able to smoothly glide around large pages of information with momentum scrolling and fluid, sharp scaling, closely tracking the finger was a huge improvement compared to the stylus UIs and key based input moving pages with arrow keys. This made mobile maps and navigation usable on mobile devices too, avoiding the need for dedicated GPS boxes like TomTom. Who was listening to music on their phones? Navigating huge lists of music tracks was too slow. Who was taking photos with their phones? This is why some people sum up the iPhone impact with 'you had me at scrolling' because that interface alone made such a huge difference.
Nobody was making usable software keyboards and phones mostly avoided them, Android didn't get one until 2 years after the original iPhone. The full qwerty keyboard meant texting and email was finally usable and people could move away from the T9 abbreviations and use proper words (e.g 'to see you' instead of 2 c u). Although devices like Blackberry/Nokia/Palm had qwerty keyboards, they were often cramped and didn't gain widespread use. Using a software keyboard when everybody else pushed for hardware meant it worked better for video and games because you got the full large display without that hardware appendage in landscape. Hardware keyboards forced either landscape or portrait but didn't allow both.
The Palm smart devices weren't designed to be phones, they used styluses and the Palm phones had keypads with small screens. Windows CE was a horrible OS because these systems were all built like miniature desktop systems (start menu and all). Installing and uninstalling apps was just like desktops including downloading archives, connecting them to PCs, unzipping/installing packages with dependencies, this required a filesystem manager or it would break. This required styluses because they had menu systems, scroll bars and tiny UI elements.
Apps on the iPhone were part of the evolution of the device (and why I didn't buy the original, as well as the price) but this arrived only a year later and they didn't even follow OS X's way of doing it, which was already simpler than everybody else. They simplified it all the way to tap once and run, everything else was unnecessary. Uninstallation was just as simple.
Let's not forget the ringtones. This sound is so grating and it used to be everywhere:
Something so simple and yet you hear it every time someone calls so why it not make it sound nice:
They made the silent vibrate better than other devices, the old devices vibrated like electric shavers:
All of this functionality was wrapped up in an interface that was simple enough for a child to use immediately, that couldn't be said about any other product. Look at the UIs:
Just swipe and tap to directly access all of hundreds of apps and hit one home button to get back out, every UI element designed for touch.
All you have to do is imagine that Apple didn't make the iPhone. Who else would have made this? Most companies didn't make software and hardware together and the ones that did weren't good at either. The failure there lies in their lack of respect for design and how it affects the user experience. They just set out to make a profit from a target market and as long as the competition didn't do any better, the profits would keep rolling in. The iPhone could have been designed the same way with only some of its improvements and still beat them at their own game but it wouldn't have destroyed their companies. The monumental lack of respect for design in those products meant that the gap between where they were and where the iPhone arrived was insurmountable. Palm went under in 3 years, about 5 years for Nokia's mobile division and 6 years for Blackberry. There's no way that would have happened if their products had been anywhere near the original iPhone.
The evolution in size didn't change the way they worked nor how they were used, the original did all of that, the new models are refinements of an iconic design that changed phones once and for all:
To be honest, my experience was quite different: When the iPhone came out I had been using a Samsung smart phone for years. Actually, it was two devices in one: a phone and a Palm OS based PDA...
The major difference between it and the iPhone was the keyboard. The physical keyboard was easier to use -- but then it restricted the screen size to less than half of what it could be -- so it was a mixed blessing.
And, to be honest, the Palm OS PDA seemed to me to be more functional than anything on the iPhone: As a tech manager it kept track of everything I needed it to keep track of and did it very well. Then, later as I transitioned into healthcare, it stored medical reference books that I needed quick access to...
But, as time went on the Palm OS went into decline while Apple continued to improve the iPhone. And eventually I transitioned to iPhone...
You're entitled to like what you like regardless of what other people think of you. You used the Palm PDA for what you needed it for and when it no longer suited you, you changed products. It's just good to keep an open mind. So many people form an instant hate for products they have little experience with. How can a person simply look at a product and say it's no good without even trying it? It seems so many tech-heads form an opinion from things they really know nothing about and it's really not fair. Apple seems like a target for people when it comes to forming instant negative opinions when history shows they're mostly wrong. Always give new products a chance. Try it and if you don't like it, that's fine. I just don't like it when people say it's no good for everyone else.
Ah, for a moment I thought you are talking about people in this forum ridiculing Android smartphones, based on problems with 4 year old android phones without even trying them in 2016 or 2017!!! Ok, it is about tech media in your post. But isn't it true the other way round as well?
You're being too facile. I think you fail to appreciate that the disdain here for Android (and its hardware makers) runs much, much deeper than your presumed "problems with 4 year old phones."
You might wish to brush up on some of the history, especially the role that Schmidt played (with his being on Apple's board, his subsequent firing), Andy Rubin, the Apple-Samsung legal saga, etc.
I realize it's a popular meme to claim that Schmidt was stealing Apple trade secrets and taking them back to Google. And that's all it amounts to: A meme with not even circumstantial evidence behind it, much less anything factual. We all know there are no claims from Apple who unless Steve Jobs was incompetent and or/they are scared of Google would certainly have filed suit against them. Neither is likely. They sure didn't hesitate taking on Samsung, their biggest supplier, when they thought they were stealing iPhone tech. Sued HTC too when they thought they were getting a bit too close to iPhone design. But you are absolutely correct that casual readers or new members may well underestimate "the disdain here for Android and it's hardware makers". For some the hate is strong (says Palpatine). It does sometimes make discussions more difficult when dealing with emotional reactions instead of thoughtful ones but not at all impossible, and certainly worthwhile to have. This forum is one of the few public facing ones that I'm aware of with so many very highly educated industry veterans.
... and FWIW Alphabet still has an employee on Apple's board, but no one seems too terribly concerned about it.
Tch,tch. One can always tell a revisionist Android apologist by the way they resort to smoke-screening what really came down in the early days of the iPhone. Yes, Google basically ripped off Apple's iOS. They got away with it by not making a direct profit (indirectly they made a huge profit) on Android, since they gave it away for free. Thus, Apple was forced to go after the hardware manufacturers, specifically Samsung, who were directly profiting off of the Android rip-off.
But what's new, eh? Windows was also a direct rip-off of Apple's OS. Not hard to do since Microsoft literally got it's start writing Word and Excel for the Macintosh long before they ported them over to Windows.
So yeah, many of us have nothing but disdain for Google. I personally have a bit less disdain for Microsoft these days since they at least made an effort to create their own OS from scratch this time around.
Back to lurking....
What would Google profiting from a theft have to do with it? Answer: Nothing. In essence you don't know what you're talking about, reaching for some reason that Apple would not have sued Google rather than the obvious one, they didn't steal from Apple.
If Apple could prove Google stole from them they would be entitled to $M's or $B's whether Google ever made a single cent, even LOST money on Android. Profiting from the theft isn't required. You only need to acquaint yourself with the law even a tiny bit to know that.
All the comments heaping accolades on the original iPhone seem to forget that the original was really kind of basic -- at least compared to today's phones. Basic enough that, on a functional level, it was more or less on par with existing phones that (also) ran the the Palm OS. In fact, in many ways, the Palm OS provided increased functionality and user friendliness...
The iPhone didn't spring from the womb into what it is today, it evolved into it... While the foundation was there, the exploitation of that foundation took awhile...
I don't think so. One of the biggest improvements was the browser. No other device used a full desktop-class browser capable of rendering web pages in as usable a way as a desktop OS. This was enabled both by the Safari browser itself and the multi-touch interface. Being able to smoothly glide around large pages of information with momentum scrolling and fluid, sharp scaling, closely tracking the finger was a huge improvement compared to the stylus UIs and key based input moving pages with arrow keys. This made mobile maps and navigation usable on mobile devices too, avoiding the need for dedicated GPS boxes like TomTom. Who was listening to music on their phones? Navigating huge lists of music tracks was too slow. Who was taking photos with their phones? This is why some people sum up the iPhone impact with 'you had me at scrolling' because that interface alone made such a huge difference.
Nobody was making usable software keyboards and phones mostly avoided them, Android didn't get one until 2 years after the original iPhone. The full qwerty keyboard meant texting and email was finally usable and people could move away from the T9 abbreviations and use proper words (e.g 'to see you' instead of 2 c u). Although devices like Blackberry/Nokia/Palm had qwerty keyboards, they were often cramped and didn't gain widespread use. Using a software keyboard when everybody else pushed for hardware meant it worked better for video and games because you got the full large display without that hardware appendage in landscape. Hardware keyboards forced either landscape or portrait but didn't allow both.
The Palm smart devices weren't designed to be phones, they used styluses and the Palm phones had keypads with small screens. Windows CE was a horrible OS because these systems were all built like miniature desktop systems (start menu and all). Installing and uninstalling apps was just like desktops including downloading archives, connecting them to PCs, unzipping/installing packages with dependencies, this required a filesystem manager or it would break. This required styluses because they had menu systems, scroll bars and tiny UI elements.
Apps on the iPhone were part of the evolution of the device (and why I didn't buy the original, as well as the price) but this arrived only a year later and they didn't even follow OS X's way of doing it, which was already simpler than everybody else. They simplified it all the way to tap once and run, everything else was unnecessary. Uninstallation was just as simple.
Let's not forget the ringtones. This sound is so grating and it used to be everywhere:
Something so simple and yet you hear it every time someone calls so why it not make it sound nice:
They made the silent vibrate better than other devices, the old devices vibrated like electric shavers:
All of this functionality was wrapped up in an interface that was simple enough for a child to use immediately, that couldn't be said about any other product. Look at the UIs:
Just swipe and tap to directly access all of hundreds of apps and hit one home button to get back out, every UI element designed for touch.
All you have to do is imagine that Apple didn't make the iPhone. Who else would have made this? Most companies didn't make software and hardware together and the ones that did weren't good at either. The failure there lies in their lack of respect for design and how it affects the user experience. They just set out to make a profit from a target market and as long as the competition didn't do any better, the profits would keep rolling in. The iPhone could have been designed the same way with only some of its improvements and still beat them at their own game but it wouldn't have destroyed their companies. The monumental lack of respect for design in those products meant that the gap between where they were and where the iPhone arrived was insurmountable. Palm went under in 3 years, about 5 years for Nokia's mobile division and 6 years for Blackberry. There's no way that would have happened if their products had been anywhere near the original iPhone.
The evolution in size didn't change the way they worked nor how they were used, the original did all of that, the new models are refinements of an iconic design that changed phones once and for all:
I disagree with most of what you said. Not that it was patently, completely false. But one sided and partially true...
The truth is: the initial iPhone was going up against several mature industries in its initial release and in some respects was either deficient or, in most cases, failed to outshine them.
... Actually, even today, many still prefer the simplicity, portability and physical toughness of a flip-phone.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not dissing on the iPhone. I did eventually get one (the iPhone 5). But only after it had matured into a great product while the others had failed to keep up... In the meantime, I was perfectly satisfied with the Samsung and Palm variants (which I did, by the way, use as GPS mapping devices). They met my needs and did it well: phone, camera, scheduling, e-books, GPS, internet....
I think even Steve Jobs would admit that his products while "insanely great" were not the only game in town.
I disagree with most of what you said. Not that it was patently, completely false. But one sided and partially true...
The truth is: the initial iPhone was going up against several mature industries in its initial release and in some respects was either deficient or, in most cases, failed to outshine them.
... Actually, even today, many still prefer the simplicity, portability and physical toughness of a flip-phone.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not dissing on the iPhone. I did eventually get one (the iPhone 5). But only after it had matured into a great product while the others had failed to keep up... In the meantime, I was perfectly satisfied with the Samsung and Palm variants (which I did, by the way, use as GPS mapping devices). They met my needs and did it well: phone, camera, scheduling, e-books, GPS, internet....
I think even Steve Jobs would admit that his products while "insanely great" were not the only game in town.
1) What kind of comment is "I think even Steve Jobs would admit that his products while "insanely great" were not the only game in town"? Shouldn't it be obvious that Apple wasn't first to this market? Apple was so far behind in releasing a cellphone that many said that Apple had no shot at gaining any traction, much less dominating the market. Your comment make it sound like you were one of those people thought Apple didn't have a chance in hell.
2a) If the iPhone was so deficient ("failed to outshine them" seems like a synonym of deficient to me), then how did they gain any traction? Are you going to say that they simply out-markerted the competition? That's it's just fashion over function?
2b) If the iPhone was such an inadequate device (synonym of deficient), then why did the industry follow their lead at every step? Why did the "if it doesn't have a physical keyboard it's just a toy" became the de facto standard? Why did the smartphone segment of the cellphone category stop being regulated to executives and tech nerds, and start being the device that replaced flip phones? You say "many still prefer […] a flip-phone," which is a statement that has as much merit as "many are born with progeria," which seems to be about 80 people in the world according to my Google search.
Are really trying to argue that the iPhone was not a seminal product in getting people jump from the dumb phone to the smartphone—most I know never even used a so-called feature phone? Are you arguing that that the iPhone did not pioneer (synonym of seminal) the modern app phone in terms of OS and HW structuring? I honestly can't see how anyone can say any different. Even if you love your Android phone or still cling to your Blackberry 6000 series or Moto X, for example and for whatever reason, that you wouldn't say the iPhone changed everything.
I disagree with most of what you said. Not that it was patently, completely false. But one sided and partially true...
The truth is: the initial iPhone was going up against several mature industries in its initial release and in some respects was either deficient or, in most cases, failed to outshine them.
... Actually, even today, many still prefer the simplicity, portability and physical toughness of a flip-phone.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not dissing on the iPhone. I did eventually get one (the iPhone 5). But only after it had matured into a great product while the others had failed to keep up... In the meantime, I was perfectly satisfied with the Samsung and Palm variants (which I did, by the way, use as GPS mapping devices). They met my needs and did it well: phone, camera, scheduling, e-books, GPS, internet....
I think even Steve Jobs would admit that his products while "insanely great" were not the only game in town.
1) What kind of comment is "I think even Steve Jobs would admit that his products while "insanely great" were not the only game in town"? Shouldn't it be obvious that Apple wasn't first to this market? Apple was so far behind in releasing a cellphone that many said that Apple had no shot at gaining any traction, much less dominating the market. Your comment make it sound like you were one of those people thought Apple didn't have a chance in hell.
2a) If the iPhone was so deficient ("failed to outshine them" seems like a synonym of deficient to me), then how did they gain any traction? Are you going to say that they simply out-markerted the competition? That's it's just fashion over function?
2b) If the iPhone was such an inadequate device (synonym of deficient), then why did the industry follow their lead at every step? Why did the "if it doesn't have a physical keyboard it's just a toy" became the de facto standard? Why did the smartphone segment of the cellphone category stop being regulated to executives and tech nerds, and start being the device that replaced flip phones? You say "many still prefer […] a flip-phone," which is a statement that has as much merit as "many are born with progeria," which seems to be about 80 people in the world according to my Google search.
Are really trying to argue that the iPhone was not a seminal product in getting people jump from the dumb phone to the smartphone—most I know never even used a so-called feature phone? Are you arguing that that the iPhone did not pioneer (synonym of seminal) the modern app phone in terms of OS and HW structuring? I honestly can't see how anyone can say any different. Even if you love your Android phone or still cling to your Blackberry 6000 series or Moto X, for example and for whatever reason, that you wouldn't say the iPhone changed everything.
You missed my point entirely:
It wasn't the original iPhone that changed the world. It was where Apple took it in subsequent years and editions. And THAT is the mark of a great company: to take an "insanely great" product and make it better and stronger...
A lot of companies have created "Insanely Great" products with enormous potential. It is the great companies that take that product and make that it better -- year after year after year...
Woz's Apple 1 was "insanely great". It took people like Jobs and Markula and a whole host of others working over a period of years to change the world and evolve it into a product that shook the world...
It wasn't the original iPhone that changed the world.
I get your point, but I disagree with it. I think those years of HW and SW development to rethink how a smartphone should work was key, and the world changed even before the first one went on sale, but when he introduced and demoed this game changing device.
What you do describe sounds like how most companies operate. Ship it out and then we'll fix things later. You can argue that it didn't have this or that feature, or that it had this or that bug—god iOS 2.x had so many issues—but I think it's a fact that they changed the world when they announced a device whose entire foundation was substantially different and better than any other device that come before it.
Do you even remember why Apple was never going to sell a single iPhone in Japan or Korea, much less gain any sort of foothold? Features! It turns out the average person wants shits that's natural, simple, and/or enjoyable to use. Do you even remember the thick booklets that came with the phones you previously mentioned? I do.
I find Mike Lazardis' comment very revealing. If you can't figure out how Steve "squeezed a Mac" into a phone when everything is right there in front of you, how do you expect to understand what it is capable of and where the future is headed?
They were convinced they'd be fine. They had all of US Congress on Blackberry, and a number of other government contracts besides. They believed it was a fad, because real keyboards made them what they were.
I seem to recall that the co-CEOs of Blackberry nee Research in Motion also didn't believe that Steve Jobs' January 2007 demo was authentic because they couldn't believe that the OS could be that responsive to mobile HW.
They were very vocal about their disbelief, and their confidence that they couldn't lose their lead.
They weren't alone. Ed Colligan said, those computer guys aren't going to walk in here and be able to do mobile. Ballmer had a few good ones, on the price, and there's no chance that the iPhone is going to get significant market share, no chance.
Their remarks sound like misplaced hubris now but what could they really say publicly? I would suspect that most were terrified of the iPhone when they first saw it. Nokia's death knell was when their CEO admitted that they couldn't compete in a leaked memo. Sales collapsed shortly afterwards. Even a CEO in trouble has to put a brave face on events.
Exactly, what were they supposed to say? "Apple just ate our lunch". They had to poo poo it publicly, but they failed to follow the paradigm shift, and it cost them dearly.
To be honest, my experience was quite different: When the iPhone came out I had been using a Samsung smart phone for years. Actually, it was two devices in one: a phone and a Palm OS based PDA...
The major difference between it and the iPhone was the keyboard. The physical keyboard was easier to use -- but then it restricted the screen size to less than half of what it could be -- so it was a mixed blessing.
And, to be honest, the Palm OS PDA seemed to me to be more functional than anything on the iPhone: As a tech manager it kept track of everything I needed it to keep track of and did it very well. Then, later as I transitioned into healthcare, it stored medical reference books that I needed quick access to...
But, as time went on the Palm OS went into decline while Apple continued to improve the iPhone. And eventually I transitioned to iPhone...
You're entitled to like what you like regardless of what other people think of you. You used the Palm PDA for what you needed it for and when it no longer suited you, you changed products. It's just good to keep an open mind. So many people form an instant hate for products they have little experience with. How can a person simply look at a product and say it's no good without even trying it? It seems so many tech-heads form an opinion from things they really know nothing about and it's really not fair. Apple seems like a target for people when it comes to forming instant negative opinions when history shows they're mostly wrong. Always give new products a chance. Try it and if you don't like it, that's fine. I just don't like it when people say it's no good for everyone else.
Ah, for a moment I thought you are talking about people in this forum ridiculing Android smartphones, based on problems with 4 year old android phones without even trying them in 2016 or 2017!!! Ok, it is about tech media in your post. But isn't it true the other way round as well?
You're being too facile. I think you fail to appreciate that the disdain here for Android (and its hardware makers) runs much, much deeper than your presumed "problems with 4 year old phones."
You might wish to brush up on some of the history, especially the role that Schmidt played (with his being on Apple's board, his subsequent firing), Andy Rubin, the Apple-Samsung legal saga, etc.
Say what you may about Google and Android, but Google was the only one that pivoted upon seeing what Apple had introduced. It simply made good business sense to follow Apple's lead.
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... and FWIW Alphabet still has an employee on Apple's board, but no one seems too terribly concerned about it.
1. The techie can use DOS, an old Blackberry / Windows Mobile so everyone else should do that too. Therefore Apple should not exist.
The fallacy here is that a tech expert is = in skills to average folks.
2. But paradoxically, there is an elitism among many techies where they get to ridicule average users who struggle with command line computing or learning codes.
Part of my computer suppport career was teaching people to use computers at work and at a university.
I never accepted the cult of difficulty which many techies promoted.
In the late 80s I could take someone who had never used a computer before and in an hour they had finished typing/saving/printing a paper for class. That was possible on a Mac but not a DOS PC.
I saw an iPhone the week it was launched. I used the multi-touch screen to browse the web. I knew at that moment that this was the future of mobile computing. Yes a techie could get their Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile device to do many different things.
But for the casual user? The iPhone method was the future.
The love affair continues to this day.
But what's new, eh? Windows was also a direct rip-off of Apple's OS. Not hard to do since Microsoft literally got it's start writing Word and Excel for the Macintosh long before they ported them over to Windows.
So yeah, many of us have nothing but disdain for Google. I personally have a bit less disdain for Microsoft these days since they at least made an effort to create their own OS from scratch this time around.
Back to lurking....
Nobody was making usable software keyboards and phones mostly avoided them, Android didn't get one until 2 years after the original iPhone. The full qwerty keyboard meant texting and email was finally usable and people could move away from the T9 abbreviations and use proper words (e.g 'to see you' instead of 2 c u). Although devices like Blackberry/Nokia/Palm had qwerty keyboards, they were often cramped and didn't gain widespread use. Using a software keyboard when everybody else pushed for hardware meant it worked better for video and games because you got the full large display without that hardware appendage in landscape. Hardware keyboards forced either landscape or portrait but didn't allow both.
The Palm smart devices weren't designed to be phones, they used styluses and the Palm phones had keypads with small screens. Windows CE was a horrible OS because these systems were all built like miniature desktop systems (start menu and all). Installing and uninstalling apps was just like desktops including downloading archives, connecting them to PCs, unzipping/installing packages with dependencies, this required a filesystem manager or it would break. This required styluses because they had menu systems, scroll bars and tiny UI elements.
Apps on the iPhone were part of the evolution of the device (and why I didn't buy the original, as well as the price) but this arrived only a year later and they didn't even follow OS X's way of doing it, which was already simpler than everybody else. They simplified it all the way to tap once and run, everything else was unnecessary. Uninstallation was just as simple.
Let's not forget the ringtones. This sound is so grating and it used to be everywhere:
Something so simple and yet you hear it every time someone calls so why it not make it sound nice:
They made the silent vibrate better than other devices, the old devices vibrated like electric shavers:
All of this functionality was wrapped up in an interface that was simple enough for a child to use immediately, that couldn't be said about any other product. Look at the UIs:
Just swipe and tap to directly access all of hundreds of apps and hit one home button to get back out, every UI element designed for touch.
All you have to do is imagine that Apple didn't make the iPhone. Who else would have made this? Most companies didn't make software and hardware together and the ones that did weren't good at either. The failure there lies in their lack of respect for design and how it affects the user experience. They just set out to make a profit from a target market and as long as the competition didn't do any better, the profits would keep rolling in. The iPhone could have been designed the same way with only some of its improvements and still beat them at their own game but it wouldn't have destroyed their companies. The monumental lack of respect for design in those products meant that the gap between where they were and where the iPhone arrived was insurmountable. Palm went under in 3 years, about 5 years for Nokia's mobile division and 6 years for Blackberry. There's no way that would have happened if their products had been anywhere near the original iPhone.
The evolution in size didn't change the way they worked nor how they were used, the original did all of that, the new models are refinements of an iconic design that changed phones once and for all:
If Apple could prove Google stole from them they would be entitled to $M's or $B's whether Google ever made a single cent, even LOST money on Android. Profiting from the theft isn't required. You only need to acquaint yourself with the law even a tiny bit to know that.
2a) If the iPhone was so deficient ("failed to outshine them" seems like a synonym of deficient to me), then how did they gain any traction? Are you going to say that they simply out-markerted the competition? That's it's just fashion over function?
2b) If the iPhone was such an inadequate device (synonym of deficient), then why did the industry follow their lead at every step? Why did the "if it doesn't have a physical keyboard it's just a toy" became the de facto standard? Why did the smartphone segment of the cellphone category stop being regulated to executives and tech nerds, and start being the device that replaced flip phones? You say "many still prefer […] a flip-phone," which is a statement that has as much merit as "many are born with progeria," which seems to be about 80 people in the world according to my Google search.
Are really trying to argue that the iPhone was not a seminal product in getting people jump from the dumb phone to the smartphone—most I know never even used a so-called feature phone? Are you arguing that that the iPhone did not pioneer (synonym of seminal) the modern app phone in terms of OS and HW structuring? I honestly can't see how anyone can say any different. Even if you love your Android phone or still cling to your Blackberry 6000 series or Moto X, for example and for whatever reason, that you wouldn't say the iPhone changed everything.
What you do describe sounds like how most companies operate. Ship it out and then we'll fix things later. You can argue that it didn't have this or that feature, or that it had this or that bug—god iOS 2.x had so many issues—but I think it's a fact that they changed the world when they announced a device whose entire foundation was substantially different and better than any other device that come before it.
Do you even remember why Apple was never going to sell a single iPhone in Japan or Korea, much less gain any sort of foothold? Features! It turns out the average person wants shits that's natural, simple, and/or enjoyable to use. Do you even remember the thick booklets that came with the phones you previously mentioned? I do.