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Apple did not have any head start, when they entered the market there were already smartphones on the market (e.g.; BlackBerry and Palm Treo). Apple just brough

Apple did not have any head start, when they entered the market there were already smartphones on the market (e.g.; BlackBerry and Palm Treo). Apple just brought out a significantly better product, and it took years for a good response to come out (and for the power of Apple's change to be appreciated fully). So this is evidence that the first move is not always the winning stroke.

causi 4y ago
You could even argue the delay is what let Apple win. Apple jumped in the moment they could build a UI paradigm around fingers and capacitive screens. Its competitors had spent a decade building a UI scheme and software ecosystem around either trackballs and keyboards or resistive touchscreens and styluses, and weren't willing to throw that away when multitouch came along.
- ghaff 4y ago
  And there were plenty of people in 2007 happy to dunk on Apple for not having a physical keyboard and various other aspects of the design that didn't represent tradeoffs that people were accustomed to but turned out to be appropriate (for most customers).
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > You could even argue the delay is what let Apple win. Apple won because of superior design and engineering. It became glaringly obvious when BlackBerry released the Storm one month or so before or after Apple released the iPhone 3G (and the App Store). I remember thinking it was a prototype when someone showed a Storm to me. Scrolling was janky, the whole phone was sluggish and slow and the keyboard barely worked. Blackberry couldn't even figure out how to get Wifi on the thing, so it was stuck using cellular while my iPhone was just streaming video. And of course, no apps. It was 2 years behind the original iPhone and shipped two years later.
paxys 4y ago
Blackberry and Palm Treo and the rest were called "smartphones", sure, but let's be real Apple completely rebooted the category. Everything that existed before iPhone was instantly irrelevant. Its competitors has to start from scratch to incorporate large multitouch screens and reimagine the basic UI and apps.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  Instantly irrelevant is certainly one way of looking at it. You are talking about a platform where developers originally had to beg for an appstore. Even Kim Kardashian was using a blackberry until 2015.
  - augment001 4y ago
    It’s very unrealistic to believe that it was developers begging that caused Apple to create the App Store. It’s possible the begging might have accelerated the process because apple wanted to capitalize on the demand, but there is no way there wouldn’t have been an App Store.
  - 908B64B197 4y ago
    > Even Kim Kardashian was using a blackberry until 2015. How much did this cost BlackBerry?
    - nemothekid 4y ago
      I'm willing to bet they paid nothing; only for the reason that RIM completely screwed the pooch on mass market smartphones and exclusively focusing on enterprise. I remember BBM having incredible penetration in college-aged women but Blackberry didn't seem interested in anything other than enterprise until it was too late. Edit: I did a quick Google Search and she was buying them on Ebay. I think it was one of the many misplays by the company.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    Form factor wise there's no argument. The iPhone completely changed the design of smartphones. Every pre-iPhone smartphone form factor except for the Blackberry was dead within 2 years. Even the Blackberry died out over time, it was just sustained by the governments and businesses with multi-year contracts a bit longer.

causi 4y ago

You could even argue the delay is what let Apple win. Apple jumped in the moment they could build a UI paradigm around fingers and capacitive screens. Its competitors had spent a decade building a UI scheme and software ecosystem around either trackballs and keyboards or resistive touchscreens and styluses, and weren't willing to throw that away when multitouch came along.

ghaff 4y ago
And there were plenty of people in 2007 happy to dunk on Apple for not having a physical keyboard and various other aspects of the design that didn't represent tradeoffs that people were accustomed to but turned out to be appropriate (for most customers).
908B64B197 4y ago
> You could even argue the delay is what let Apple win. Apple won because of superior design and engineering. It became glaringly obvious when BlackBerry released the Storm one month or so before or after Apple released the iPhone 3G (and the App Store). I remember thinking it was a prototype when someone showed a Storm to me. Scrolling was janky, the whole phone was sluggish and slow and the keyboard barely worked. Blackberry couldn't even figure out how to get Wifi on the thing, so it was stuck using cellular while my iPhone was just streaming video. And of course, no apps. It was 2 years behind the original iPhone and shipped two years later.

paxys 4y ago

Blackberry and Palm Treo and the rest were called "smartphones", sure, but let's be real Apple completely rebooted the category. Everything that existed before iPhone was instantly irrelevant. Its competitors has to start from scratch to incorporate large multitouch screens and reimagine the basic UI and apps.

nemothekid 4y ago
Instantly irrelevant is certainly one way of looking at it. You are talking about a platform where developers originally had to beg for an appstore. Even Kim Kardashian was using a blackberry until 2015.
- augment001 4y ago
  It’s very unrealistic to believe that it was developers begging that caused Apple to create the App Store. It’s possible the begging might have accelerated the process because apple wanted to capitalize on the demand, but there is no way there wouldn’t have been an App Store.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > Even Kim Kardashian was using a blackberry until 2015. How much did this cost BlackBerry?
  - nemothekid 4y ago
    I'm willing to bet they paid nothing; only for the reason that RIM completely screwed the pooch on mass market smartphones and exclusively focusing on enterprise. I remember BBM having incredible penetration in college-aged women but Blackberry didn't seem interested in anything other than enterprise until it was too late. Edit: I did a quick Google Search and she was buying them on Ebay. I think it was one of the many misplays by the company.
- jandrese 4y ago
  Form factor wise there's no argument. The iPhone completely changed the design of smartphones. Every pre-iPhone smartphone form factor except for the Blackberry was dead within 2 years. Even the Blackberry died out over time, it was just sustained by the governments and businesses with multi-year contracts a bit longer.