3 ms·

There was a pretty fixed window in which the hardware was going to be relevant, and an enormous amount of work to be done to get a useful product out in that wi

There was a pretty fixed window in which the hardware was going to be relevant, and an enormous amount of work to be done to get a useful product out in that window. It's also worth being ... cautious about this account. Many of the competing / complementary perspectives aren't represented, often because they are still working there.

kjksf 9y ago
Fixed how? First, it wasn't about the hardware. Other companies (Nokia, HTC, Samsung, Motorola) were doing competitive hardware. It was all about the software and Apple was so far ahead of everyone else, that if they took 1 year more to ship, they would still be far ahead of everyone else. As history shows, the only credible competition was from Microsoft and Android. RIM/Nokia/Samsung/HTC/Motorola (all significant players) couldn't replicate iOS no matter how much time they would take. First iPhone was released on June 2007 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone) Windows Phone was released on Nov 2010, 3 years later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone). First Android was released on September 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history) and took a long time to achieve design quality parity with iOS. Apple had plenty lead time.
- Teever 9y ago
  "It was all about the software and Apple was so far ahead of everyone else, that if they took 1 year more to ship, they would still be far ahead of everyone else." How did they know that for certain?
  - cakedoggie 9y ago
    Easy, they can just travel forward in time to now and have the benefit of hindsight.
- Joeri 9y ago
  Not only that. The android which was going to happen before the iphone was a very different beast. It was closer in spirit to WinCE and BB than to iOS. WP7 also happened only because of the android and iphone competition. I think it's reasonable to say that smartphone OS's would have remained terrible for a long time without the iphone leading the way.

kjksf 9y ago

Fixed how? First, it wasn't about the hardware. Other companies (Nokia, HTC, Samsung, Motorola) were doing competitive hardware. It was all about the software and Apple was so far ahead of everyone else, that if they took 1 year more to ship, they would still be far ahead of everyone else. As history shows, the only credible competition was from Microsoft and Android. RIM/Nokia/Samsung/HTC/Motorola (all significant players) couldn't replicate iOS no matter how much time they would take. First iPhone was released on June 2007 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone) Windows Phone was released on Nov 2010, 3 years later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone). First Android was released on September 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history) and took a long time to achieve design quality parity with iOS. Apple had plenty lead time.

Teever 9y ago
"It was all about the software and Apple was so far ahead of everyone else, that if they took 1 year more to ship, they would still be far ahead of everyone else." How did they know that for certain?
- cakedoggie 9y ago
  Easy, they can just travel forward in time to now and have the benefit of hindsight.
Joeri 9y ago
Not only that. The android which was going to happen before the iphone was a very different beast. It was closer in spirit to WinCE and BB than to iOS. WP7 also happened only because of the android and iphone competition. I think it's reasonable to say that smartphone OS's would have remained terrible for a long time without the iphone leading the way.