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Do you mean didn't exist at all, or just hadn't been made by Apple? edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted. The answer affects the whole tone and meaning of th

• brianpan 16y ago
  60% of current sales are from iPhone and iPad which were launched in the past 3 years.
  • mkr-hn 16y ago
    The question was what is meant by "didn't exist."
    • tvon 16y ago
      as in "the Apple product didn't exist"
    • photon_off 16y ago
      He answered your question. "Products that did not exist three years ago" can be replaced by "iPhone and iPad." It would appear to mean "products made by Apple"
      • derefr 16y ago
        The iPhone and iPad are products. Smartphones and tablets are product categories. There's a clear (if unconscious) distinction in the usage of the two terms, at least in press-release-speak.
    • ra88it 16y ago
      The iPhone did not exist before Apple released it. Is that controversial?
      • mkr-hn 16y ago
        The wording could have been taken to mean the general product any of those are based on. I'm sorry for seeking clarification. Won't ever happen again. I was kind of hoping HN was the sort of place where I could ask that without being jumped on as some sort of anti-Apple instigator. Some people are upvoting, so yay. Maybe it is. :)
        • jamesaguilar 16y ago
          To be fair, it was a bit of a snarky question. You knew whether phones existed before the iPhone, so it's not like you could have been asking that in good faith. Similar with touchscreen tablets.
          • mkr-hn 16y ago
            I should have put more time and thought in to wording, but the intent was positive.
        • wtallis 16y ago
          So, what general product do you think the iPhone was based on? The Blackberry, or perhaps the Treo, since that had a touch screen? In order to say that Apple didn't come up with the idea behind the iPod or the iPhone, you have to generalize the category to the point that it was painfully obvious to anybody even remotely aware of what's going on in the industry. MP3 players are an obvious idea to anybody who has heard of the Walkman and knows that computers can store and play music. The idea of using a tiny hard drive in one is similarly obvious. So is the idea of making a phone that can surf the web and also be an MP3 player. When people praise Apple's ingenuity with the iPhone and iPod, they are referring to the fact that almost everything other than the most fundamental idea was revolutionary or at least clever. In other words, every aspect of the product that actually affects its success in the marketplace was invented or re-invented.
          • mkr-hn 16y ago
            Almost every post I make in this thread ends up with 3-4 downvotes no matter what, so I'm hesitant to answer this with any kind of thoughtful response. I want to, but I was looking forward to hitting 200, and now it's pretty far off.
    • jfarmer 16y ago
      Nobody is jumping on your because you're being "anti-Apple." They're down-voting you because you're being pedantic, whether intentional or not.
      • mkr-hn 16y ago
        One interpretation makes this a post about the success of an innovator. One interpretation makes this post one giving false credit for the creation of entire industries. It is something I've seen from a minority of Apple users. It's a valid question.
        • derefr 16y ago
          One interpretation is being charitable to the intelligence of the community who chose to upvote it; the other presumes they were either fooled, or that the minority you refer to has infiltrated HN and is on a mission to block-upvote Apple propaganda. A combination of the Principle of Charity and Occam's Razor makes the latter seem improbable.
        • jfarmer 16y ago
          He obviously meant that most of Apple's product line is less than 3 years old. The iPad, per se, did not exist three years ago, though of course the concept of a tablet computer is decades old.
          • Herring 16y ago
            >the concept of a tablet computer is decades old And it's been dead in the water the whole time. There were many failed attempts at flying machines before the Wright brothes.
            • pyre 16y ago
              True, but I think the people saying things like "Apple didn't invent..." are about spaces like the smartphone market, or the mp3 player market (or even selling mp3s online). While many might describe the iPad as "just a larger iPhone," I think that it's different enough from other tablet offerings to give Apple some amount of credit.
  • ShardPhoenix 16y ago
    Wow, the iPhone only came out in 2007? Somehow it feels like it's been around much longer.
• tvon 16y ago
  I'll guess that you're being down-voted because it's an odd question (seems obvious if you read the post), which by itself is no big deal, but one might think the answer is so obvious that perhaps you're just trying to make that tired "Apple didn't invent the phone/portable music player/touchscreen/etc" point.
• deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
• mkr-hn 16y ago
  I like how I've lost 40 points just for having a disagreement. My tone and manner are no worse than anyone else who manages to stick around for more than a day without being downvoted in to oblivion. I haven't even called anyone names. I've even had deeper, more protracted arguments than this without losing any points.