3 ms·

Pre-iPhone Nokias all had resistive touchscreens. Not a pleasant experience for pointing and dragging. Before 2007 no one was insane enough to put glass on a ph

• pjc50 7y ago
  This. It's not the glass specifically (you can still buy cheap androids with polycarbonate screens), but the capacitative touchscreen, which is more expensive and requires a much fancier controller to read. But without it, either you have to use a stylus, which despite Samsung's belief hardly anyone wants, or press fairly hard. And you can't do multi-touch at all. Capacitative touchscreen + "real" web browser (not WAP!) was the key capability of the iPhone. The fact that it subsumed the already successful iPod was a big benefit too.
  • canuckintime 7y ago
    > you have to use a stylus, which despite Samsung's belief hardly anyone wants That's an odd swipe in an otherwise good post. You don't have to use a stylus with the Galaxy Note series but the option is quite popular
  • diffeomorphism 7y ago
    > which despite Samsung's belief hardly anyone wants Which is why nobody is buying ipad pros or surface pros and Wacom is bankrupt /s. Having a pen in addition to capacitive touch is great. Having only a pen was not. Though the resistive screens in the Nokia N900 or the Nintendo DS for example were not bad.
• baybal2 7y ago
  First usable application of capacitive digitiser on the smartphone was done by HTC. Even before Touch, they tried to make WinMo operable without a stylus. A big part of Iphone 1 UI was a direct copy of HTC designs.