10 ms·

I'm surprised that the premise that the iPhone is an "invention" is so quickly accepted. It wasn't like nobody was making any similar devices, and then this new

by Y_Y 8y ago

I'm surprised that the premise that the iPhone is an "invention" is so quickly accepted. It wasn't like nobody was making any similar devices, and then this new idea came along. I know that invention can be as simple as gluing two existing things together, but the meaningful aspect has to be that there is an original idea there. No doubt it popularised a lot of existing technology, and arguably combined some of that technology in a way that hadn't been done before. All the same, that reasoning could apply to the second version of the iPhone. Was that an "invention" too?

rayiner 8y ago
I followed PDAs pretty closely back then, and I'm unaware of any device where the OS was built around multi-touch, like the iPhone.[1] The iPhone was one of the few devices back then to render the "real web" and being able to swipe and pinch to navigate pages was a game-changer on the order of the first mouse-based UIs. It dramatically changes how much content you can easily access on a small screen (which is why even devices with styluses today have multi-touch screens to facilitate scroll/zoom). It also improves the quality of the on-screen keyboard, enabling you to ditch the physical one (or reliance on something like Graffiti). [1] Apple didn't invent multi-touch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t35HXAjNW6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t35HXAjNW6s. I believe it was the first to build a mobile UI entirely around it.
- basch 8y ago
  Multi-touch deserves too much credit. It was inertia. You could flick the screen to scroll. It calculated your intent, and applied a duration. That momentum made all the difference in the world. No longer are you sitting there flick flick flicking your screen.
  - whatever1 8y ago
    It is worth mentioning that the iPhone had the best multitouching system in the industry for at least 3 years. I remember the android devices struggling to register gestures when more than one finger was touching the screen.
  - 8ytecoder 8y ago
    I used to argue the same - that an iPhone is not an invention - after all Nokia, Samsung and HTC had phones that are just as capable with applications as the iPhone was and some had good music applications and others had good productivity apps. Then I saw my mom - someone who has never used a computer before - learn to use a tablet. Everything was intuitive for her. TBC, that was an android but everything that makes it intuitive came from the iPhone. The whole interface introduced by iOS - touch is a major factor but not the only one - is just intuitive for a lot of people.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      My five year old has been pretty proficient on her iPad for the last year or two. I never showed her how to use it.
- josh2600 8y ago
  It’s easy to forget how crazy the world was before the iPhone. Let me list the ways in which Apple blew the doors off of the industry with the iPhone: 1) battery: the iPhone was basically a giant battery strapped to a logic board. No one had designed a phone like this, ever. 2) capacitive multi-touch with inertia: capacitive touch screens existed, but the software for using them was really bad (see windows mobile 5 as the leading example). 3) non-WAP browser: all phones prior to the iPhone had a wap browser. The consensus knowledge in the industry was that doing full web on mobile was still years, maybe decades away. Apple came in and rendered the full New York Times on mobile and it changed the world. 4) App Store: before Apple, carriers had an App Store that was garbage or you sideloaded software. That was it. The App Store changed the world, not technically but politically. Finally users could get good software from their phones over the air. I could go on for days. This doesn’t even touch carrier distribution, call quality, or any part of the OS stack which was basically black magic at the time. The iPhone really changed the world.
  - unsignedchar 8y ago
    Visual voicemail
  - harryh 8y ago
    It's worth noting re: #4 that the iPhone did not debut with an App Store. It had the pre-installed apps and that was it for the 1st year. The App Store arrived in year 2.
    - josh2600 8y ago
      That's correct. Version 1 of the iPhone also didn't have MMS and was EDGE only.
      - soylentcola 8y ago
        While I'm not implying that the iPhone "sucked" or some other meaningless fanboyism, when it came out, I was intrigued by the things it had that my Palm and WinMobile phones didn't. Those were always missing gpu drivers (poor responsiveness) or had resistive screens (no multitouch) or some other minor annoyance. But the list of things I'd have to give up for a first gen iPhone (not even counting the mandatory AT&T bill in the US) made it a no-go: No copy/paste. No third party apps (I regularly used mine to stream Shoutcast stations in the car on my cheap unlimited 3G data before it became a cash cow to be milked by the carriers). No 3G radio at all actually. No GPS. No multitasking/backgrounding apps. No MMS (which was doubly important if you didn't have 3rd party IM apps). I was in a geek dilemma. Apple fixed the UI but lacked most of what made my smartphone "smart" at the time. Likewise, all of the ones with more capabilities lacked the smooth UI and usability improvements of the iPhone. I'm just glad that in subsequent years Apple slowly added in functionality while their competitors got the message that usability was important as well.

by Y_Y 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago

I followed PDAs pretty closely back then, and I'm unaware of any device where the OS was built around multi-touch, like the iPhone.[1] The iPhone was one of the few devices back then to render the "real web" and being able to swipe and pinch to navigate pages was a game-changer on the order of the first mouse-based UIs. It dramatically changes how much content you can easily access on a small screen (which is why even devices with styluses today have multi-touch screens to facilitate scroll/zoom). It also improves the quality of the on-screen keyboard, enabling you to ditch the physical one (or reliance on something like Graffiti). [1] Apple didn't invent multi-touch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t35HXAjNW6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t35HXAjNW6s. I believe it was the first to build a mobile UI entirely around it.

basch 8y ago
Multi-touch deserves too much credit. It was inertia. You could flick the screen to scroll. It calculated your intent, and applied a duration. That momentum made all the difference in the world. No longer are you sitting there flick flick flicking your screen.
- whatever1 8y ago
  It is worth mentioning that the iPhone had the best multitouching system in the industry for at least 3 years. I remember the android devices struggling to register gestures when more than one finger was touching the screen.
- 8ytecoder 8y ago
  I used to argue the same - that an iPhone is not an invention - after all Nokia, Samsung and HTC had phones that are just as capable with applications as the iPhone was and some had good music applications and others had good productivity apps. Then I saw my mom - someone who has never used a computer before - learn to use a tablet. Everything was intuitive for her. TBC, that was an android but everything that makes it intuitive came from the iPhone. The whole interface introduced by iOS - touch is a major factor but not the only one - is just intuitive for a lot of people.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    My five year old has been pretty proficient on her iPad for the last year or two. I never showed her how to use it.
josh2600 8y ago
It’s easy to forget how crazy the world was before the iPhone. Let me list the ways in which Apple blew the doors off of the industry with the iPhone: 1) battery: the iPhone was basically a giant battery strapped to a logic board. No one had designed a phone like this, ever. 2) capacitive multi-touch with inertia: capacitive touch screens existed, but the software for using them was really bad (see windows mobile 5 as the leading example). 3) non-WAP browser: all phones prior to the iPhone had a wap browser. The consensus knowledge in the industry was that doing full web on mobile was still years, maybe decades away. Apple came in and rendered the full New York Times on mobile and it changed the world. 4) App Store: before Apple, carriers had an App Store that was garbage or you sideloaded software. That was it. The App Store changed the world, not technically but politically. Finally users could get good software from their phones over the air. I could go on for days. This doesn’t even touch carrier distribution, call quality, or any part of the OS stack which was basically black magic at the time. The iPhone really changed the world.
- unsignedchar 8y ago
  Visual voicemail
- harryh 8y ago
  It's worth noting re: #4 that the iPhone did not debut with an App Store. It had the pre-installed apps and that was it for the 1st year. The App Store arrived in year 2.
  - josh2600 8y ago
    That's correct. Version 1 of the iPhone also didn't have MMS and was EDGE only.
    - soylentcola 8y ago
      While I'm not implying that the iPhone "sucked" or some other meaningless fanboyism, when it came out, I was intrigued by the things it had that my Palm and WinMobile phones didn't. Those were always missing gpu drivers (poor responsiveness) or had resistive screens (no multitouch) or some other minor annoyance. But the list of things I'd have to give up for a first gen iPhone (not even counting the mandatory AT&T bill in the US) made it a no-go: No copy/paste. No third party apps (I regularly used mine to stream Shoutcast stations in the car on my cheap unlimited 3G data before it became a cash cow to be milked by the carriers). No 3G radio at all actually. No GPS. No multitasking/backgrounding apps. No MMS (which was doubly important if you didn't have 3rd party IM apps). I was in a geek dilemma. Apple fixed the UI but lacked most of what made my smartphone "smart" at the time. Likewise, all of the ones with more capabilities lacked the smooth UI and usability improvements of the iPhone. I'm just glad that in subsequent years Apple slowly added in functionality while their competitors got the message that usability was important as well.