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While Apple designed the phone well, the key breakthrough was touch based interfaces and Apple got the technology(capacitive touch sensing) for that by acquirin
by petra 11y ago
While Apple designed the phone well, the key breakthrough was touch based interfaces and Apple got the technology(capacitive touch sensing) for that by acquiring fingerWorks.
Even though Jobs knew that touch based sensing is key , Apple wasn't the one coming up with the solution. Or maybe the did work on that , behind the scenes , but failed ?
- digi_owl 11y agoI sometimes wonder if the choice of screen tech came down to prevalent weather of the office location. California is nice a warm most of the year, allowing gloves free handling of devices. In contrast, places like Finland is covered in snow for somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the year. A stylus and resistive screen works much better under those conditions. And South Korea (Samsung) is not that different. I seem to recall images and videos of Koreans using snack sausages as an ad-hoc stylus when capacitive screen devices started shipping. Also, i think a resistive screen and stylus allows more data to be packed into a small screen. And Apple has had a history of gobbling startups. iTunes was a purchase as well, iirc.
- MaysonL 11y agoWhy didn't Google, Microsoft, or IBM buy fingerworks? Why did only Apple see that this tech was key, and was humble enough to know they didn't have it, and could buy it?
- petra 11y agoSo Apple had great vision, but lets a startup take the risk. Isn't this what the article is talking about ?