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I'd argue that Apple's big "innovation" was the capacitive touch screen, that made the UI so much more fluid and responsive. Palm almost shipped a webOS device

I'd argue that Apple's big "innovation" was the capacitive touch screen, that made the UI so much more fluid and responsive. Palm almost shipped a webOS device with a resistive touch screen, but pivoted away after Rubenstein took the reigns. The Treo was a great device for its time, but suddenly felt old fashioned after the iPhone came out -- even though iOS was significantly less capable in its initial implementation (modal notifications, no copy/paste, no apps, etc...)

bombcar 4y ago
Yeah the touchscreen was the first that "worked" like you expected it to - before the best screens were the ones with styluses which could work well, but was a piece to lose/harder to use at a glance.
- hamburglar 4y ago
  They also had the first browser that wasn’t severely crippled by compromises based on d-pad and extremely inaccurate touch input. Before iphone, the mobile web was a sad joke.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I remember that - a huge advantage of the original Safari is it would show desktop versions of many websites; back then mobile sites were absolute trash. And it was usable because you could pinch + zoom.
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    Opera Mobile (not Mini) for Symbian S60 with its d-pad bag of tricks was surprisingly usable with desktop websites, just crippled by a very low-res screen. Too bad it seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth even before Presto was abandoned.
    - hamburglar 4y ago
      I had some amazingly expensive Nokia 900 series phone that had WebKit on it for testing something for work (no way I was going to carry that monstrosity) and I remember it being impressive that it could actually faithfully render real pages. Still had garbage d-pad interaction.
robin_reala 4y ago
LG Prada had a big capacitive screen pre-iPhone.[1] What Apple did well was bring everything together. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada
autoconfig 4y ago
The capacitive touch screen was necessary but alone wouldn’t have meant much without the revolutionizing software stack. You may think “revolutionizing” seems hyperbolic here but a lot of people forget or don't realize how truly far behind the competition was. Software keyboards were considered a complete no-go, even by folks within Apple (Ken Kocienda's “Creative Selection” is a great read on the development of the keyboard). Dragging / flinging / pinch to zoom didn’t exist anywhere else or if it did, only in prototype or proof-of-concept form. The capacitive screen unlocked these features but no one else knew how to build them. I was working at Sony Ericsson when the first iPhone was released. I distinctly remember holding it in my hand and using mobile Safari for the first time and thinking... “we’re fucked”. The company simply didn’t have the engineering chops needed to catch up. Later on Android would provide a possible solution but we managed to screw things up even with a full OS handed to us.

bombcar 4y ago

Yeah the touchscreen was the first that "worked" like you expected it to - before the best screens were the ones with styluses which could work well, but was a piece to lose/harder to use at a glance.

hamburglar 4y ago
They also had the first browser that wasn’t severely crippled by compromises based on d-pad and extremely inaccurate touch input. Before iphone, the mobile web was a sad joke.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I remember that - a huge advantage of the original Safari is it would show desktop versions of many websites; back then mobile sites were absolute trash. And it was usable because you could pinch + zoom.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  Opera Mobile (not Mini) for Symbian S60 with its d-pad bag of tricks was surprisingly usable with desktop websites, just crippled by a very low-res screen. Too bad it seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth even before Presto was abandoned.
  - hamburglar 4y ago
    I had some amazingly expensive Nokia 900 series phone that had WebKit on it for testing something for work (no way I was going to carry that monstrosity) and I remember it being impressive that it could actually faithfully render real pages. Still had garbage d-pad interaction.

robin_reala 4y ago

LG Prada had a big capacitive screen pre-iPhone.[1] What Apple did well was bring everything together. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada

autoconfig 4y ago

The capacitive touch screen was necessary but alone wouldn’t have meant much without the revolutionizing software stack. You may think “revolutionizing” seems hyperbolic here but a lot of people forget or don't realize how truly far behind the competition was. Software keyboards were considered a complete no-go, even by folks within Apple (Ken Kocienda's “Creative Selection” is a great read on the development of the keyboard). Dragging / flinging / pinch to zoom didn’t exist anywhere else or if it did, only in prototype or proof-of-concept form. The capacitive screen unlocked these features but no one else knew how to build them. I was working at Sony Ericsson when the first iPhone was released. I distinctly remember holding it in my hand and using mobile Safari for the first time and thinking... “we’re fucked”. The company simply didn’t have the engineering chops needed to catch up. Later on Android would provide a possible solution but we managed to screw things up even with a full OS handed to us.