There is no way the single-touch Prada phone could have ever been the industry game changer the iPhone was because of a single feature they shared in the common. The iPhone from HW I the OS to the apps to the philosophy (e.g.: making true phone just another app) to the announcement of Xcode and AppStore 6 months later were all responsible for its success.
Didn't say it would be a game changer. I said that what the article says which is...
Quote:
A world without Apple's NeXT
Without the iPhone, there would be no easy to use touchscreen mobile devices. Instead, Android would look just as it did before the iPhone: a button-centric alternative to PalmOS and Windows Mobile and the Blackberry, none of which would have changed much in the past four years. There would be no tablets. There would be no effort to build Ultrabooks just like the MacBook Air. We'd only have a wide variety of cheap, low quality netbooks to choose from.
Is putting far to much importance on NeXT, when for certain we would have touchscreen phones the fact that the Prada phone was announced fractionally before the iPhone demonstrates that someone else would have thought of keyboards on touchscreens rather than buttons like the article suggests.
The claim that there would also be no effor to build ultrabooks like the MacBook Air is also incorrect as it was only a couple of months after the Air was released Apple was told they had to stop advertising it as the thinnest laptop due to it not being any more. And it wasn't a device made in response to the Air that ended up being thinner.
I'd accept that we may not have devices that look as nice (although a lot of tech is following a Web 2.0 style that has nothing to do with Apple), and there might not have been anyone that would try to quadruple the price people pay for phones. But to assert that the rest of the industry would stand still is complete rubbish.
Didn't say it would be a game changer. I said that what the article says which is...
Is putting far to much importance on NeXT, when for certain we would have touchscreen phones the fact that the Prada phone was announced fractionally before the iPhone demonstrates that someone else would have thought of keyboards on touchscreens rather than buttons like the article suggests.
The claim that there would also be no effor to build ultrabooks like the MacBook Air is also incorrect as it was only a couple of months after the Air was released Apple was told they had to stop advertising it as the thinnest laptop due to it not being any more. And it wasn't a device made in response to the Air that ended up being thinner.
I'd accept that we may not have devices that look as nice (although a lot of tech is following a Web 2.0 style that has nothing to do with Apple), and there might not have been anyone that would try to quadruple the price people pay for phones. But to assert that the rest of the industry would stand still is complete rubbish.
I think your making a lot of incorrect assumptions about how technology progresses. I don't see any evidence that everything Apple did to reinvent the market would have naturally happened.
As for thinking of an onscreen keyboard that had been done before and before that was imagined in science fiction. The different from before and after the iPhone is how that tool's useability is perceived. When the iPhone was announced it would be crap because all such keyboards are crap. I assumed it would be good but slower than a HW keyboard on phone. Turns out it's faster but does have the abet of requiring the tyre to look. Would this have become standard eventually? Sure, eventually, but it was because of Apple that this is standard on smartphones today.
Look at the mindset back in 2007 compared to today. Not all of it has changed but at least mug of it has been challanged... by Apple. I can't see how this would have happened by now without the iPhone.
Most of that was in Microsoft's favor as they were facing a multi-billion dollar law suit from Apple and anti-trust issues from the government. Propping up Apple not only help detract from their monopoly, but also made them a nice return, settled outstanding lawsuits, AND gave Microsoft something else to copy from for the next 15 years.
That $150M "investment" is probably one of the greatest moves Steve Jobs ever made in the chess game of Apple vs. Microsoft. In fact, it could be one of the most historic moves ever made by a CEO. Who else could get a bitter rival to invest $150M in what appears to be a lost cause? Who else could then use that momentum to eclipse the rival company while at the same time holding them contractually obligated to develop software (Office and IE) for their competing platform? Steve F-ing Jobs, that's who.
Excellent Article - could say it's a nice overview/primer for Birth of Digital Age
And for some of us, a trip down memory lane
.
Glad it included the One Single Factor that's made Apple "Different", will seal its place in History, and continue to have all others chasing them for many years to come.
"Intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts"
Where Apple's been since Day One. And rest of "Tech Wannabes" are not only unable to find that place, they don't even seem have it on their map (assuming they do HAVE a map?).
With that 'location' firmly established, all Apple had to do was wait for the 'Tech Side' of things to catch up to the 'vision' they (Steve, et al) knew would be realized in time.
Things like 'Vectors' to figure Pi faster, so able to get 'arcs/circles' drawn correctly and not need 'anti-aliasing' computations to slow down the processor stuck with x/y algebra methods to eliminate those 'stair steps' in an 'arc/circle'.
Which finally showed itself by the 2000s as Apple kicked the chit out of everyone else doing what everyone always laughed about for so many years - "Yea, Macs are great for graphics, but if you want to get any real work done, go Microsoft".
Ok, and that "real work" was basically an adding machine, calculator, and cash register - with some email/text thrown in on the side.
Not the kind of 'things' that the World wanted to 'change'.
But - needed those 'graphic calculations' (again, the vectors/trig) to do Music/Media/Video/etc ... and do them properly and fast.
And took a while for the processors/tech stuff to catch up enough to make it all 'fly' - when it finally did ? Say hello to iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc
'Things' Apple was just waiting to 'invent' once the time was ripe - how did Steve describe it when he intro'd the iPod ... "Music, low hanging fruit"
On and on - imagine any of you who known the 'depth of tech' and the History over the years can fill in the blanks (and offer any 'corrections') to the 'general idea' I'm pointing at here.
Should be obvious to those who are able to 'see'.
.
Oh, and one other Biggie, about Steve
When did he come back to Apple, about 1998 ?
So until his death, he spent 12 or 13 years bringing Apple back from the dead, and chart a course for the future that will carry Apple for these many years to come.
Steve Jobs returned to the fold when Apple bought NeXT in 1996. Gil Amelio was ousted in 1997 and was replaced by Steve Jobs. Jobs announced the iMac in 1998. The iMac signaled to the popular press and to a large fraction of the buying public that there was a "new Apple."
...Is putting far to much importance on NeXT, when for certain we would have touchscreen phones the fact that the Prada phone was announced fractionally before the iPhone demonstrates that someone else would have thought of keyboards on touchscreens rather than buttons like the article suggests.
The original LG Prada phone was not Android. It was an embedded OS running a UI built with Flash Lite. It could not be considered an "easy to use touchscreen" anywhere compatible to the iPhone. And it was a commercial failure. The only thing successful about it was its being compared to the iPhone in a "we did it first" sort of way by LG before it threw everything about the Prada away and started copying Apple's design as closely as it could. There is really nothing of value left from the original Prada design. It was nothing more than a prototype experiment offering nothing but a high price tag. It was not an important bit of smartphone history in any respect.
Quote:
The claim that there would also be no effor to build ultrabooks like the MacBook Air is also incorrect as it was only a couple of months after the Air was released Apple was told they had to stop advertising it as the thinnest laptop due to it not being any more. And it wasn't a device made in response to the Air that ended up being thinner.
Again, the value of the MacBook Air was not just its thinness. It was an overall package, built on top of lots of engineering skill. Nothing has replaced it yet, and there aren't even any capable competitors in place. To suggest that the MBA design was fated to be invented by somebody is rather silly, given that the PC market didn't innovate worth a damn for decade under the rule of Microsoft, apart from chips getting faster.
Quote:
I'd accept that we may not have devices that look as nice (although a lot of tech is following a Web 2.0 style that has nothing to do with Apple), and there might not have been anyone that would try to quadruple the price people pay for phones. But to assert that the rest of the industry would stand still is complete rubbish.
Nobody said industry would stand still. There has been lots of progress apart from Apple. But very little of that progress has considered the importance of usability, desirability, and esthetics that Apple has imparted into its products.
Look at any other industry and you see lots of companies competing to deliver those aspects (automobiles, clothing, food, hospitality and so on). Among tech companies, there seems to be a myopic drive toward increasing the MHz and RAM, delivering it cheaper, and that's about it.
That's not a fanboy flattery of Apple, it's a reality that mocks the tech industry and its overall inability to recognize the importance of basic humanities.
I am still to this day astounded by the hardware and software made by NeXT. It was easily 15 years ahead of the rest of the industry. That is a mind boggling lead in the computer industry. I hope that within my lifetime, there will be another Steve Jobs to orchestrate such an impressive achievement. These technological leaps don't come along that often.
Comments
There is no way the single-touch Prada phone could have ever been the industry game changer the iPhone was because of a single feature they shared in the common. The iPhone from HW I the OS to the apps to the philosophy (e.g.: making true phone just another app) to the announcement of Xcode and AppStore 6 months later were all responsible for its success.
Didn't say it would be a game changer. I said that what the article says which is...
A world without Apple's NeXT
Without the iPhone, there would be no easy to use touchscreen mobile devices. Instead, Android would look just as it did before the iPhone: a button-centric alternative to PalmOS and Windows Mobile and the Blackberry, none of which would have changed much in the past four years. There would be no tablets. There would be no effort to build Ultrabooks just like the MacBook Air. We'd only have a wide variety of cheap, low quality netbooks to choose from.
Is putting far to much importance on NeXT, when for certain we would have touchscreen phones the fact that the Prada phone was announced fractionally before the iPhone demonstrates that someone else would have thought of keyboards on touchscreens rather than buttons like the article suggests.
The claim that there would also be no effor to build ultrabooks like the MacBook Air is also incorrect as it was only a couple of months after the Air was released Apple was told they had to stop advertising it as the thinnest laptop due to it not being any more. And it wasn't a device made in response to the Air that ended up being thinner.
I'd accept that we may not have devices that look as nice (although a lot of tech is following a Web 2.0 style that has nothing to do with Apple), and there might not have been anyone that would try to quadruple the price people pay for phones. But to assert that the rest of the industry would stand still is complete rubbish.
Didn't say it would be a game changer. I said that what the article says which is...
Is putting far to much importance on NeXT, when for certain we would have touchscreen phones the fact that the Prada phone was announced fractionally before the iPhone demonstrates that someone else would have thought of keyboards on touchscreens rather than buttons like the article suggests.
The claim that there would also be no effor to build ultrabooks like the MacBook Air is also incorrect as it was only a couple of months after the Air was released Apple was told they had to stop advertising it as the thinnest laptop due to it not being any more. And it wasn't a device made in response to the Air that ended up being thinner.
I'd accept that we may not have devices that look as nice (although a lot of tech is following a Web 2.0 style that has nothing to do with Apple), and there might not have been anyone that would try to quadruple the price people pay for phones. But to assert that the rest of the industry would stand still is complete rubbish.
I think your making a lot of incorrect assumptions about how technology progresses. I don't see any evidence that everything Apple did to reinvent the market would have naturally happened.
As for thinking of an onscreen keyboard that had been done before and before that was imagined in science fiction. The different from before and after the iPhone is how that tool's useability is perceived. When the iPhone was announced it would be crap because all such keyboards are crap. I assumed it would be good but slower than a HW keyboard on phone. Turns out it's faster but does have the abet of requiring the tyre to look. Would this have become standard eventually? Sure, eventually, but it was because of Apple that this is standard on smartphones today.
Look at the mindset back in 2007 compared to today. Not all of it has changed but at least mug of it has been challanged... by Apple. I can't see how this would have happened by now without the iPhone.
Most of that was in Microsoft's favor as they were facing a multi-billion dollar law suit from Apple and anti-trust issues from the government. Propping up Apple not only help detract from their monopoly, but also made them a nice return, settled outstanding lawsuits, AND gave Microsoft something else to copy from for the next 15 years.
That $150M "investment" is probably one of the greatest moves Steve Jobs ever made in the chess game of Apple vs. Microsoft. In fact, it could be one of the most historic moves ever made by a CEO. Who else could get a bitter rival to invest $150M in what appears to be a lost cause? Who else could then use that momentum to eclipse the rival company while at the same time holding them contractually obligated to develop software (Office and IE) for their competing platform? Steve F-ing Jobs, that's who.
Frankly I prefer the simplicity of NeXTStep to OSX sometimes. At least the interface is consistent...
I also have one of only a few processor accelerators for the Turbo slab - a 50Mhz 040 I believe.
Excellent Article - could say it's a nice overview/primer for Birth of Digital Age
And for some of us, a trip down memory lane
.
Glad it included the One Single Factor that's made Apple "Different", will seal its place in History, and continue to have all others chasing them for many years to come.
"Intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts"
Where Apple's been since Day One. And rest of "Tech Wannabes" are not only unable to find that place, they don't even seem have it on their map (assuming they do HAVE a map?).
With that 'location' firmly established, all Apple had to do was wait for the 'Tech Side' of things to catch up to the 'vision' they (Steve, et al) knew would be realized in time.
Things like 'Vectors' to figure Pi faster, so able to get 'arcs/circles' drawn correctly and not need 'anti-aliasing' computations to slow down the processor stuck with x/y algebra methods to eliminate those 'stair steps' in an 'arc/circle'.
Which finally showed itself by the 2000s as Apple kicked the chit out of everyone else doing what everyone always laughed about for so many years - "Yea, Macs are great for graphics, but if you want to get any real work done, go Microsoft".
Ok, and that "real work" was basically an adding machine, calculator, and cash register - with some email/text thrown in on the side.
Not the kind of 'things' that the World wanted to 'change'.
But - needed those 'graphic calculations' (again, the vectors/trig) to do Music/Media/Video/etc ... and do them properly and fast.
And took a while for the processors/tech stuff to catch up enough to make it all 'fly' - when it finally did ? Say hello to iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc
'Things' Apple was just waiting to 'invent' once the time was ripe - how did Steve describe it when he intro'd the iPod ... "Music, low hanging fruit"
On and on - imagine any of you who known the 'depth of tech' and the History over the years can fill in the blanks (and offer any 'corrections') to the 'general idea' I'm pointing at here.
Should be obvious to those who are able to 'see'.
.
Oh, and one other Biggie, about Steve
When did he come back to Apple, about 1998 ?
So until his death, he spent 12 or 13 years bringing Apple back from the dead, and chart a course for the future that will carry Apple for these many years to come.
And - he did it all for what ?
His $12 or $13 in salary over those years ?
Uh huh - yea, right
THAT is why Steve/Apple are what they are
THAT is what will Change the World™
.
...
When did he come back to Apple, about 1998 ?
...
Steve Jobs returned to the fold when Apple bought NeXT in 1996. Gil Amelio was ousted in 1997 and was replaced by Steve Jobs. Jobs announced the iMac in 1998. The iMac signaled to the popular press and to a large fraction of the buying public that there was a "new Apple."
...Is putting far to much importance on NeXT, when for certain we would have touchscreen phones the fact that the Prada phone was announced fractionally before the iPhone demonstrates that someone else would have thought of keyboards on touchscreens rather than buttons like the article suggests.
The original LG Prada phone was not Android. It was an embedded OS running a UI built with Flash Lite. It could not be considered an "easy to use touchscreen" anywhere compatible to the iPhone. And it was a commercial failure. The only thing successful about it was its being compared to the iPhone in a "we did it first" sort of way by LG before it threw everything about the Prada away and started copying Apple's design as closely as it could. There is really nothing of value left from the original Prada design. It was nothing more than a prototype experiment offering nothing but a high price tag. It was not an important bit of smartphone history in any respect.
The claim that there would also be no effor to build ultrabooks like the MacBook Air is also incorrect as it was only a couple of months after the Air was released Apple was told they had to stop advertising it as the thinnest laptop due to it not being any more. And it wasn't a device made in response to the Air that ended up being thinner.
Again, the value of the MacBook Air was not just its thinness. It was an overall package, built on top of lots of engineering skill. Nothing has replaced it yet, and there aren't even any capable competitors in place. To suggest that the MBA design was fated to be invented by somebody is rather silly, given that the PC market didn't innovate worth a damn for decade under the rule of Microsoft, apart from chips getting faster.
I'd accept that we may not have devices that look as nice (although a lot of tech is following a Web 2.0 style that has nothing to do with Apple), and there might not have been anyone that would try to quadruple the price people pay for phones. But to assert that the rest of the industry would stand still is complete rubbish.
Nobody said industry would stand still. There has been lots of progress apart from Apple. But very little of that progress has considered the importance of usability, desirability, and esthetics that Apple has imparted into its products.
Look at any other industry and you see lots of companies competing to deliver those aspects (automobiles, clothing, food, hospitality and so on). Among tech companies, there seems to be a myopic drive toward increasing the MHz and RAM, delivering it cheaper, and that's about it.
That's not a fanboy flattery of Apple, it's a reality that mocks the tech industry and its overall inability to recognize the importance of basic humanities.
I am still to this day astounded by the hardware and software made by NeXT. It was easily 15 years ahead of the rest of the industry. That is a mind boggling lead in the computer industry. I hope that within my lifetime, there will be another Steve Jobs to orchestrate such an impressive achievement. These technological leaps don't come along that often.