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My impression of prominent criticism of the early iPhone was that it was shallow and self serving. The things competitors were saying about it, like implying i

My impression of prominent criticism of the early iPhone was that it was shallow and self serving. The things competitors were saying about it, like implying it wouldn't be successful because people really wanted a real keyboard, seemed ridiculous as a serious rational. It is generally safe to assume, baring strong evidence to the contrary, that a large dominant incumbent will fail to adapt in the face of fundamental change to an industry brought by a new entrant. That there are still large groups of people that take the other side of this assumption is surprising to me. The most recent prominent example is everyone out there saying that incumbent car companies are going to out complete Tesla in electric or self driving cars. That view seems to be on the verge of being undeniably wrong.

kube-system 6y ago
> My impression of prominent criticism of the early iPhone was that it was shallow and self serving. The things competitors were saying about it, like implying it wouldn't be successful because people really wanted a real keyboard, seemed ridiculous as a serious rational. That wasn't a ridiculous idea at all at the time. The lack of tactile feedback was (and is) a legitimate industrial design concern, and it had a learning curve that was difficult for many people.[1] I had many customers at the time who demanded continued support for their blackberries because of the difficulty they had with the iPhone keyboard. Heck, even I chose to go with an HTC device that had a hard keyboard, because I found it easier. Everyone now finds modern on-screen keyboards to be intuitive, partially because they've improved and they're larger, but also because people understand how they work. At the time of the iPhone launch, people didn't understand auto-correct or how they didn't have to worry about how their thumbs were larger than the keys. Even Jobs himself admitted there was a learning curve: "Once you learn to trust the keyboard, it’s a better keyboard."[0] 0: https://radarla.com/interview-steve-jobs/ https://radarla.com/interview-steve-jobs/ 1: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1497367 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1497367

kube-system 6y ago

> My impression of prominent criticism of the early iPhone was that it was shallow and self serving. The things competitors were saying about it, like implying it wouldn't be successful because people really wanted a real keyboard, seemed ridiculous as a serious rational. That wasn't a ridiculous idea at all at the time. The lack of tactile feedback was (and is) a legitimate industrial design concern, and it had a learning curve that was difficult for many people.[1] I had many customers at the time who demanded continued support for their blackberries because of the difficulty they had with the iPhone keyboard. Heck, even I chose to go with an HTC device that had a hard keyboard, because I found it easier. Everyone now finds modern on-screen keyboards to be intuitive, partially because they've improved and they're larger, but also because people understand how they work. At the time of the iPhone launch, people didn't understand auto-correct or how they didn't have to worry about how their thumbs were larger than the keys. Even Jobs himself admitted there was a learning curve: "Once you learn to trust the keyboard, it’s a better keyboard."[0] 0: https://radarla.com/interview-steve-jobs/ https://radarla.com/interview-steve-jobs/ 1: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1497367 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1497367