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None of that disagrees with my point, I don't think. >>I think most companies implementing one would have screwed it up (see: RIM). Little keyboards were a de

None of that disagrees with my point, I don't think. >>I think most companies implementing one would have screwed it up (see: RIM). Little keyboards were a dead end (I think I remember reading contemporaneous articles noting the fundamental problem of "little keyboard -> little screen" and the little screen being just too small. The real issue wasn't the little keyboard per se, it was the little screen). I think Apple had the advantage in creating software keyboards, because they had the ability to tightly coordinate the hardware and software development. They also the capital to take the risk. I suppose RIM also did hardware and software, but their software was less sophisticated than Apple's. >>I find it plausible that, absent Apple's existence, we'd be using clunky GUIs on desktop computers and even clunkier GUIs with physical keyboards on smartphones. Wasn't that sort of my point? My point was that only Apple was positioned to do the iPhone in the mid-2000s.

macintux 9y ago
Given the difficulty of entering the mobile handset market, and the inertia of most players, I'm just not sure we would have broken out of the rut. I think the player who might have made the leap was Google, who was experimenting with touchscreen devices, but they aren't the boldest company when it comes to hardware.
- mtdewcmu 9y ago
  >>Given the difficulty of entering the mobile handset market, and the inertia of most players, I'm just not sure we would have broken out of the rut. I think we might agree on that? I guess my main thesis rests on the idea that an iPhone is more like a tiny computer than it's like a circa-2007 cell phone. It was easier for Apple to make a tiny Mac with phone capabilities than it would have been for a handset manufacturer to retrofit PC-like functionality onto their handsets. Apple was already the master of the Mac ecosystem, which they could leverage however they wanted. Handset manufacturers would have had to acquire a computer platform or partner with a computer company (which, I guess, is the story of Android).

macintux 9y ago

Given the difficulty of entering the mobile handset market, and the inertia of most players, I'm just not sure we would have broken out of the rut. I think the player who might have made the leap was Google, who was experimenting with touchscreen devices, but they aren't the boldest company when it comes to hardware.

mtdewcmu 9y ago
>>Given the difficulty of entering the mobile handset market, and the inertia of most players, I'm just not sure we would have broken out of the rut. I think we might agree on that? I guess my main thesis rests on the idea that an iPhone is more like a tiny computer than it's like a circa-2007 cell phone. It was easier for Apple to make a tiny Mac with phone capabilities than it would have been for a handset manufacturer to retrofit PC-like functionality onto their handsets. Apple was already the master of the Mac ecosystem, which they could leverage however they wanted. Handset manufacturers would have had to acquire a computer platform or partner with a computer company (which, I guess, is the story of Android).