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I said that it worked well back then. I didn't say anything about the mass market. So I didn't contradict myself. I think that you skim-read my post ;) But, on

I said that it worked well back then. I didn't say anything about the mass market. So I didn't contradict myself. I think that you skim-read my post ;) But, on the subject of the "mass market"... What Apple/Jobs did was build an awesome device for media consumption. Up until then we'd been talking about the PDA - a productivity device. It needed a physical keyboard and stylus input to make it "productive". The best PDA up until then was the Palm Pilot - it has exceptional writing recognition - if you spent two hours learning their alphabet. It works for email, spreadsheets. Battery life was excellent. Most people I know used it with a fold-out keyboard when traveling. Apple realized that 99% of the time you'll using your phone to play games, read, listen to music or watch videos. Their touch screen was fantastic - it took just seconds to learn how to use it. Sure, writing emails was a pain (even with the smart keyboards), but you'd only do that rarely. So yeah, you're kind of right: no-one whose main use-case is content consumption is going to want to use a stylus. For content creators however a well-implemented stylus is a big sell. That's why Microsoft are throwing so much weight behind the Surface Pro, and it's also the main reason people are buying it.

jp555 11y ago
It takes me 100x less effort to shoot, edit, & upload a photo or video using an iPhone compared to the first $8000 Adobe Premiere PC rig I used to learn video editing, let alone comparing to the nearly useless PDAs (in this regard) of their day (and I loved my Palm Pilots & Visors). Voice-to-text transcription today is immensely easier & more accurate than writing with Graffiti input. Instagram alone is evidence that there are immense numbers of people creating massive amounts of content on their touchscreen smartphones. Spreadsheets are super-niche content. Text, photos, & video are mainstream content. Compared to email on the desktop during the PDA era, I'd bet people communicate with other people much much more now via their smartphones, whether that's through email, social networks, instant messaging, or video chat.
xorcist 11y ago
The reason iPhone was designed for this usage pattern probably has to do with the iPod, with which they owned mobile music consumption for half a decade. A PDA would have been a radical re-think. Fans wanted a phone in there since day one. The only reason it took them six years to do it was Jobs commitment to getting it exactly right (or "his way" if you wish) which meant technology had to become available.

jp555 11y ago

It takes me 100x less effort to shoot, edit, & upload a photo or video using an iPhone compared to the first $8000 Adobe Premiere PC rig I used to learn video editing, let alone comparing to the nearly useless PDAs (in this regard) of their day (and I loved my Palm Pilots & Visors). Voice-to-text transcription today is immensely easier & more accurate than writing with Graffiti input. Instagram alone is evidence that there are immense numbers of people creating massive amounts of content on their touchscreen smartphones. Spreadsheets are super-niche content. Text, photos, & video are mainstream content. Compared to email on the desktop during the PDA era, I'd bet people communicate with other people much much more now via their smartphones, whether that's through email, social networks, instant messaging, or video chat.

xorcist 11y ago

The reason iPhone was designed for this usage pattern probably has to do with the iPod, with which they owned mobile music consumption for half a decade. A PDA would have been a radical re-think. Fans wanted a phone in there since day one. The only reason it took them six years to do it was Jobs commitment to getting it exactly right (or "his way" if you wish) which meant technology had to become available.