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> Android source code is publicly available, with time stamps. You can read it and see how little had to change to make it a touch first ux. > Android had to a
by WoodenChair 5y ago
> Android source code is publicly available, with time stamps. You can read it and see how little had to change to make it a touch first ux.
> Android had to add multi-touch events, make the default controls bigger, and add inertial scrolling to the list views. They didn’t even have to add a soft keyboard, because the first few gens of phones had physical keyboards.
Whether or not it was a lot of code, multi-touch was a revolutionary new UI paradigm and a beautiful symbiosis between well tuned hardware and software. I don’t think its importance should be trivialized and the iPhone was undoubtedly the catalyst that brought Fingerworks’s invention to the masses.
- ksec 5y agoThis. The genius of iPhone UI was that it was so obvious once you saw it. There were plenty of so called Smartphones then, with or without Keyboard. But none of the touch screen phone interface were user friendly. Zero.
- Joeri 5y agoThere was a full touch screen phone that predated the iphone, the LG prada, but if you look at the demo you can see in some places they arrived at a similar design (the dialer), in others they had a laughably bad design (T9 text message entry on the touch screen) and overall it was very unresponsive. The iphone didn’t just have the right touch ui concepts, it executed them really well. LG prada phone demo from 15 years ago: https://youtu.be/5mo7Ab6ZcJ4 https://youtu.be/5mo7Ab6ZcJ4
- ksec 5y agoYes I even had one, the LG Prada. Along with other Smartphone like Sony Ericsson P800, or O2 XDA which was similar to LG Prada but way earlier, I think it was 2002. They were based on Windows Mobile. And some other PDAs before that. The O2 XDA were built by HTC ,at the time they were like Foxconn doing ODM before it became a consumer brand. There were lots and lots of other small details that Apple got it right. And I said it the first time I saw the iPhone, what sets them apart was Apple was trying to make an iPhone like an Appliance. While all other Smartphones was trying to cramp a computer inside a Phone factor. The day I saw iPhone I knew that was it. The Smartphone I have been looking for. Strange it is 15 years already. I still dont know why the Visual Voicemail patents had not expired. It really should be the standard on all network.
- colinthompson 5y agoI purchased the fingerworks gesture keyboard insert for my TiBook. It was amazing. I remember thinking it was the future of all laptop input devices. While I'm glad it resurfaced as the iOS input device, I am super bummed I still don't have that keyboard on my MacBook. That thing was incredible.