7 ms·

I don't assume that Steve Jobs thought of the iPhone when having a shower or anything. As with every idea, it must have evolved as people worked on other stuff

by mrtksn 5y ago

I don't assume that Steve Jobs thought of the iPhone when having a shower or anything. As with every idea, it must have evolved as people worked on other stuff. In the case of iPhone, we know how it came to existence, it is a story told countless times. Didn't Nokia had R&D department? Of course they did and I'm sure that they also had brilliant designers and engineers who did amazing work. They simply lacked a Steve Jobs to weed out and steer their work to make it whole. In my opinion, Nokia failed due to poor leadership but not poor talent. Once Nokia was gone, the talent pool in Finland transformed and once again managed to do great things and be a hotspot.

hnlmorg 5y ago
You say that as if Nokia didn't produce some world class products but they did. There was a era when Nokia handsets were the one everyone wanted. And they were instrumental in building GSM, of which without no mobile phones would exist, let alone iPhones. I'm not going to deny that Nokia lost their way with Symbian handsets but my point is I don't see Apple as being uniquely brilliant. You often see this tide where one decade company X will be on top and the follow decade another trend will follow. This is also true of Apple: they haven't always enjoyed the success they have now. They've been close to failing a few times. Microsoft even bailed them out once just to avoid ending up in a highly regulated monopoly.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  I don't say anything of that sort. Nokia made the best cellphones in the world and was never surpassed - it's just that people stopped using cellphones. In fact, my argument is that Steve Jobs never competed with Nokia. In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced a new type of device that no one else was making. Sure, they had some functionality overlap with some devices but it was completely new thing and everyone rushed to abandone whatever they are doing and started competing with Apple a few years later.
  - sleepybrett 5y ago
    I have a hard time deciding if the nokia 61xx era phone were the pinnacle at the time or the motorola star-tac flips.
  - asveikau 5y ago
    Symbian was good though. As was Maemo, imo even more so. Nokia was in this disorganized place where symbian was still making them money being "good enough" but increasingly clearly not the future, they didn't want to fully commit to Maemo, and meanwhile they were still doing well in the feature phone business. That's 3 platforms and no clear winner for the flagship. I get the impression that internal competition combined with not enough coherent vision was what did them in. That and hiring Elop, but so much was already in bad shape before that.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  Except they are uniquely brilliant. Several world changing products to their name even before becoming the worlds most profitable company in the history of humanity. That’s not overstating things either. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, apple has knocked a few out of the park in ways nobody else has been able to. With style, with panache.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    You could have said the same about Microsoft, word for word, in the 90s. Similar arguments for Amazon, IBM, Oracle and others too. I even listed several world changing achievements for Nokia in the post you're refuting (if it wasn't for GSM there wouldn't even be an iPhone) what's more, Microsoft still dominate Apple for desktop OSs and Google still dominate Apple for mobile OSs too. Apple have made some quality products but they're not uniquely brilliant.
- aesopsfable 5y ago
  Not to belittle Nokia or anything, they took already available eg. smart calculators' digital displays adopted to GSM phones. Steve Jobs (Apple) did something no one ever expected, knew, or supported at the time (Steve Ballmer reaction*) Although they make great objects of desire, Toyota is no Tesla, Nokia is no Apple. Wozniak is acting like an ex partner probably because he owes his entire identity to Jobs, an identity that he enjoys but perhaps coming from an ex he never liked, maybe he's seeking catharsis. Perhaps feeling indebted to a bully who he never recovered from, not being able to reach that peak again on his own, is the reason why we get these interviews from him where he says these things about Jobs. Who knows.
  - sleepybrett 5y ago
    You can trace the iphone back to, concretely, the newton but even further back if you check out the concepts that got them to the newton. There is a 1997 book called 'Apple Design 1997 The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group' that shows a ton of concepts and a few 'communication device' concepts (video and audio phone integrated computers). Sadly out of print, and quite expensive for a paperback 'coffee table' style book https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-Group/dp/1888001259/ref=sr_1_3?crid=TOT1FC5SOLKE&keywords=apple+design+book&qid=1646762157&sprefix=apple+design+bo%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-3 https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-G... Some pictures from inside, including one concept integrated with a telephone handset: https://twitter.com/jamesthomson/status/798542140435480576 https://twitter.com/jamesthomson/status/798542140435480576
    - aesopsfable 5y ago
      There is a cheesy movie from Tom Cruise, Minority Report, whomever takes those displays to market, finds a scalable profitable way to produce them, finds enough courage to resist status quo and find massive product market fit, will be the next Jobs or Musk. Idea wise, everything literally was on either Star Trek or on Star Wars previously. I know these personalities are not exactly likeable but we'll keep this conversation for the next simulation of the universe with different parameters...

by mrtksn 5y ago

hnlmorg 5y ago

You say that as if Nokia didn't produce some world class products but they did. There was a era when Nokia handsets were the one everyone wanted. And they were instrumental in building GSM, of which without no mobile phones would exist, let alone iPhones. I'm not going to deny that Nokia lost their way with Symbian handsets but my point is I don't see Apple as being uniquely brilliant. You often see this tide where one decade company X will be on top and the follow decade another trend will follow. This is also true of Apple: they haven't always enjoyed the success they have now. They've been close to failing a few times. Microsoft even bailed them out once just to avoid ending up in a highly regulated monopoly.

mrtksn 5y ago
I don't say anything of that sort. Nokia made the best cellphones in the world and was never surpassed - it's just that people stopped using cellphones. In fact, my argument is that Steve Jobs never competed with Nokia. In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced a new type of device that no one else was making. Sure, they had some functionality overlap with some devices but it was completely new thing and everyone rushed to abandone whatever they are doing and started competing with Apple a few years later.
- sleepybrett 5y ago
  I have a hard time deciding if the nokia 61xx era phone were the pinnacle at the time or the motorola star-tac flips.
- asveikau 5y ago
  Symbian was good though. As was Maemo, imo even more so. Nokia was in this disorganized place where symbian was still making them money being "good enough" but increasingly clearly not the future, they didn't want to fully commit to Maemo, and meanwhile they were still doing well in the feature phone business. That's 3 platforms and no clear winner for the flagship. I get the impression that internal competition combined with not enough coherent vision was what did them in. That and hiring Elop, but so much was already in bad shape before that.
imwillofficial 5y ago
Except they are uniquely brilliant. Several world changing products to their name even before becoming the worlds most profitable company in the history of humanity. That’s not overstating things either. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, apple has knocked a few out of the park in ways nobody else has been able to. With style, with panache.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  You could have said the same about Microsoft, word for word, in the 90s. Similar arguments for Amazon, IBM, Oracle and others too. I even listed several world changing achievements for Nokia in the post you're refuting (if it wasn't for GSM there wouldn't even be an iPhone) what's more, Microsoft still dominate Apple for desktop OSs and Google still dominate Apple for mobile OSs too. Apple have made some quality products but they're not uniquely brilliant.
aesopsfable 5y ago
Not to belittle Nokia or anything, they took already available eg. smart calculators' digital displays adopted to GSM phones. Steve Jobs (Apple) did something no one ever expected, knew, or supported at the time (Steve Ballmer reaction*) Although they make great objects of desire, Toyota is no Tesla, Nokia is no Apple. Wozniak is acting like an ex partner probably because he owes his entire identity to Jobs, an identity that he enjoys but perhaps coming from an ex he never liked, maybe he's seeking catharsis. Perhaps feeling indebted to a bully who he never recovered from, not being able to reach that peak again on his own, is the reason why we get these interviews from him where he says these things about Jobs. Who knows.
- sleepybrett 5y ago
  You can trace the iphone back to, concretely, the newton but even further back if you check out the concepts that got them to the newton. There is a 1997 book called 'Apple Design 1997 The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group' that shows a ton of concepts and a few 'communication device' concepts (video and audio phone integrated computers). Sadly out of print, and quite expensive for a paperback 'coffee table' style book https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-Group/dp/1888001259/ref=sr_1_3?crid=TOT1FC5SOLKE&keywords=apple+design+book&qid=1646762157&sprefix=apple+design+bo%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-3 https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-G... Some pictures from inside, including one concept integrated with a telephone handset: https://twitter.com/jamesthomson/status/798542140435480576 https://twitter.com/jamesthomson/status/798542140435480576
  - aesopsfable 5y ago
    There is a cheesy movie from Tom Cruise, Minority Report, whomever takes those displays to market, finds a scalable profitable way to produce them, finds enough courage to resist status quo and find massive product market fit, will be the next Jobs or Musk. Idea wise, everything literally was on either Star Trek or on Star Wars previously. I know these personalities are not exactly likeable but we'll keep this conversation for the next simulation of the universe with different parameters...