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Just to point out this sounds like the exact criticisms you might have levied at Apple for the original iPhone. Not that this will go the same way, but they've

Just to point out this sounds like the exact criticisms you might have levied at Apple for the original iPhone. Not that this will go the same way, but they've done it once the dramatic world changing effect.

pavlov 3y ago
The iPhone cost roughly the same as 2007’s competing smartphones that were already selling millions of units (e.g. the Nokia N95), and it offered completely unique capabilities. Today there is a high-volume VR headset in the market, the Quest 2, but the new Apple device is projected to be nearly ten times more expensive and it seems to be more of an incremental advancement of the state of the art. But we’ll see… I hope Apple pulls a rabbit out of the hat.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  What were those "completely unique capabilities" at launch? There was no App Store. It didn't record video. It didn't have 3G. It was actually a fairly ho-hum phone.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    The combination of screen size, resolution, and non-broken browser to render non-mobile-specific websites tolerably. That's how it broke the “smartphones are niche because the mobile web sucks, and the mobile web sucks because there are so few users that its not worth improving” barrier.
    - chasd00 3y ago
      Don’t forget Apply also got the soft keyboard right which was no small feat. People were dead set against it but here we are no physical keyboards anywhere on smartphones.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        Sure. Not sure that was indepedently important (for adoption, it clearly had a big impact on the course of mobile interaction) but even if it wasn’t it was essential to the web thing, because otherwise you couldn’t have a usable keyboard and a sufficiently large screen.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    It was a ho-hum phone by the existing standard of mobile phones. But it offered a full-size capacitive touchscreen and a desktop-level operating system. These were both unique in the market, and importantly they were designed together for a cohesive experience that nobody else could match. The iPhone introduced UI affordances like inertial touch scrolling which we take for granted today, and that UI enabled things like mobile web browsing that didn’t suck. The iPod touch was an important pillar of this new platform’s introduction. It’s often forgotten today, but a lot of people around the world got introduced to iOS on the iPod rather than the iPhone.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      Can you elaborate further on what you mean by a "desktop-level operating system"? By what metric(s)/feature-set? Because Windows Mobile out-did it every way in terms of multitasking, file system et al. You couldn't even multitask on an iPhone until iOS 4 in 2010. The capacitive touchscreen wasn't unique, the LG Prada was announced prior to the original iPhone, and launched before the original iPhone too. Perhaps "unusual" would be a better term. I had an iPhone at launch, and perhaps it's down to what websites you used (I'm a Brit), but the browsing experience was pretty terrible until people started developing responsive websites, and it really wasn't until ~2009-2010 that this took off in any appreciable or meaningful capacity in the UK, and even then, it was still common to have a separate mobile version of a website up until 2013. Prior to that, an app for larger websites became much more common, and offered a much better experience than the mobile website or responsive website ever did. Browsing the web over 2G sucked. Websites having buttons too small to press with your fingers also sucked. Websites that were 100% Flash were super common, as were Flash elements. Even the PlayStation Portable could display Flash in the browser by 2005 after an official firmware update from Sony. I also had Windows Mobile, BlackBerry et al in the years prior to that. Sure, pinch-to-zoom, that was serviceable in lieu of a responsive website or mobile site, but it still sucked versus just using the app for the site when the App Store eventually launched. Furthermore, most of the software innovation was happening in Cydia via jailbreaks prior to the App Store launch. Even then, for a considerable number of years following it. Apple would frequently incorporate whatever was hot on Cydia as a concept on the next major version of iOS.
  - acdha 3y ago
    The real web available in your pocket. If you weren’t using the mobile web before then, it was a decidedly second-class experience until mobile Safari launched. It took Google 2-3 years after the iPhone to get Android to be comparable and by then the App Store was booming, which basically doomed all of the old phones. Previously selling apps required paying off each carrier and giving huge percentages of the sales, so there were almost no apps of decent quality available. At WWDC 2008, there was spontaneous applause when it launched with much better terms, hard as that may be to believe now.
  - vkou 3y ago
    Hacker News has Blackberry amnesia.
    - anonymouse008 3y ago
      The blackberry message thread context was terrible, iPhone was better - come on, don't lie. The idea you could get full screen visual context was the kicker - blackberry screens were 'decent' but when it was a ~2.5 inch height, compared to the iPhone - it was unreadable.
      - vkou 3y ago
        Look, I'm not saying that the blackberry was perfect. But I am saying that it had feature parity with the first iPhone.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    It had the first phone web browser, and indeed the first web browser on any device smaller than a laptop, which didn't make you want to immediately throw it out the window. That was a big deal.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  In 2007, cellphones were mostly “free” (the cost was hidden in the service contract). Plus however much they made by putting crapware on the phones. Similarly the Facebook devices have their cost hidden in the privacy violations that come built in. It is a “better” business model than the cellphone contracts because it is even harder to figure out how much they are making off you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Apple model wins again.
- ianbutler 3y ago
  The original iPhone was pretty bad actually. It didn't have many of the unique capabilities compared to what we know. In terms of competitive pricing, I mean yeah if this is just a Quest 2 with better screens its DOA, but I would hope not, though I am keeping expectations low. My only point was Apple does have the capability to pull rabbits out of their hat, not that they will.
- andrewjl 3y ago
  > The iPhone cost roughly the same as 2007’s competing smartphones that were already selling millions of units (e.g. the Nokia N95), and it offered completely unique capabilities. At the time of launch the iPhone was one of the highest priced (including carrier subsidies) phones on the market.[1] > Today there is a high-volume VR headset in the market, the Quest 2, but the new Apple device is projected to be nearly ten times more expensive and it seems to be more of an incremental advancement of the state of the art. As Ballmer mentions later there were high-volume Windows Mobile phones available at that time too.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXq9NTjEdTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXq9NTjEdTo
bombcar 3y ago
The iPhone worked as an iPod and a phone. It didn’t need to do anything else to already “win” for a few bucks more than both combined.
notatoad 3y ago
Did people really say that about the original iphone? I don't remember that. I remember the iPhone announcement as being a product that basically everybody had been asking for and immediately saw the value in. And the rumour cycle leading up to the announcement was insane - people were so hyped for apple to announce a proper smartphone, it was already a product category. Things like the Palm Treo and the Nokia N95 existed and were relatively popular - handheld computers with phone capabilities as well as full web browsers, email clients, maps, video playback, etc. The iPhone was taking a product concept that had already been proven, and hugely improving the form factor and user experience. Nobody saw the iPhone announcement and said "nah, i just don't see the value there".
- wodenokoto 3y ago
  Yes. The iPhone was expensive upfront, with an expensive contract to top it off. They did cut the price relatively early.
- BryantD 3y ago
  Gizmodo loved it, but "The real elephant in the room is the fact that I just spent $600 on my iPhone and it can’t do some crucial functions that even $50 handsets can. I’m talking about MMS. Video recording. Custom ringtones. Mass storage. Fully functioning Bluetooth with stereo audio streaming..." TechCrunch: "That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone. Don’t be surprised if a sizable contingent of iPhone buyers express some remorse at ditching their BlackBerry when they spend an extra hour each day pumping out emails on the road." A ton of people loved it, but it came under heavy criticism for the lack of physical keyboard and the AT&T dependency.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    Not enough emphasis can be placed on the existence of a usable web browser on a phone. It did not exist before. Blackberry was great for emails, and Windows mobile was great for propping your door open, but when Safari on iOS came out, even with it being slow 2G and with a buggy keyboard and no copy/paste -- you could use websites on a mobile device -- anywhere. Being able to pull up amazon and check reviews for products while browsing in a BestBuy or whatever was something that just was not practical before and it was a game changer, instantly. Lots of people criticized it for not being able to do basic tasks like copy and paste or the lack of 3G after they bought it. The iPhone didn't suffer at all from the criticism because people saw it as a work in progress -- the AT&T attachment was actually brilliant because it allowed them to make AT&T build their network and offer decent data plans. Before iPhone the data rate was something ridiculous as an add-on to a regular phone plan, and everyone using 2G data all at once brought the network to its knees in dense areas and forced upgrades.

pavlov 3y ago

The iPhone cost roughly the same as 2007’s competing smartphones that were already selling millions of units (e.g. the Nokia N95), and it offered completely unique capabilities. Today there is a high-volume VR headset in the market, the Quest 2, but the new Apple device is projected to be nearly ten times more expensive and it seems to be more of an incremental advancement of the state of the art. But we’ll see… I hope Apple pulls a rabbit out of the hat.

hammyhavoc 3y ago
What were those "completely unique capabilities" at launch? There was no App Store. It didn't record video. It didn't have 3G. It was actually a fairly ho-hum phone.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  The combination of screen size, resolution, and non-broken browser to render non-mobile-specific websites tolerably. That's how it broke the “smartphones are niche because the mobile web sucks, and the mobile web sucks because there are so few users that its not worth improving” barrier.
  - chasd00 3y ago
    Don’t forget Apply also got the soft keyboard right which was no small feat. People were dead set against it but here we are no physical keyboards anywhere on smartphones.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      Sure. Not sure that was indepedently important (for adoption, it clearly had a big impact on the course of mobile interaction) but even if it wasn’t it was essential to the web thing, because otherwise you couldn’t have a usable keyboard and a sufficiently large screen.
- pavlov 3y ago
  It was a ho-hum phone by the existing standard of mobile phones. But it offered a full-size capacitive touchscreen and a desktop-level operating system. These were both unique in the market, and importantly they were designed together for a cohesive experience that nobody else could match. The iPhone introduced UI affordances like inertial touch scrolling which we take for granted today, and that UI enabled things like mobile web browsing that didn’t suck. The iPod touch was an important pillar of this new platform’s introduction. It’s often forgotten today, but a lot of people around the world got introduced to iOS on the iPod rather than the iPhone.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Can you elaborate further on what you mean by a "desktop-level operating system"? By what metric(s)/feature-set? Because Windows Mobile out-did it every way in terms of multitasking, file system et al. You couldn't even multitask on an iPhone until iOS 4 in 2010. The capacitive touchscreen wasn't unique, the LG Prada was announced prior to the original iPhone, and launched before the original iPhone too. Perhaps "unusual" would be a better term. I had an iPhone at launch, and perhaps it's down to what websites you used (I'm a Brit), but the browsing experience was pretty terrible until people started developing responsive websites, and it really wasn't until ~2009-2010 that this took off in any appreciable or meaningful capacity in the UK, and even then, it was still common to have a separate mobile version of a website up until 2013. Prior to that, an app for larger websites became much more common, and offered a much better experience than the mobile website or responsive website ever did. Browsing the web over 2G sucked. Websites having buttons too small to press with your fingers also sucked. Websites that were 100% Flash were super common, as were Flash elements. Even the PlayStation Portable could display Flash in the browser by 2005 after an official firmware update from Sony. I also had Windows Mobile, BlackBerry et al in the years prior to that. Sure, pinch-to-zoom, that was serviceable in lieu of a responsive website or mobile site, but it still sucked versus just using the app for the site when the App Store eventually launched. Furthermore, most of the software innovation was happening in Cydia via jailbreaks prior to the App Store launch. Even then, for a considerable number of years following it. Apple would frequently incorporate whatever was hot on Cydia as a concept on the next major version of iOS.
- acdha 3y ago
  The real web available in your pocket. If you weren’t using the mobile web before then, it was a decidedly second-class experience until mobile Safari launched. It took Google 2-3 years after the iPhone to get Android to be comparable and by then the App Store was booming, which basically doomed all of the old phones. Previously selling apps required paying off each carrier and giving huge percentages of the sales, so there were almost no apps of decent quality available. At WWDC 2008, there was spontaneous applause when it launched with much better terms, hard as that may be to believe now.
- vkou 3y ago
  Hacker News has Blackberry amnesia.
  - anonymouse008 3y ago
    The blackberry message thread context was terrible, iPhone was better - come on, don't lie. The idea you could get full screen visual context was the kicker - blackberry screens were 'decent' but when it was a ~2.5 inch height, compared to the iPhone - it was unreadable.
    - vkou 3y ago
      Look, I'm not saying that the blackberry was perfect. But I am saying that it had feature parity with the first iPhone.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rsynnott 3y ago
  It had the first phone web browser, and indeed the first web browser on any device smaller than a laptop, which didn't make you want to immediately throw it out the window. That was a big deal.
bee_rider 3y ago
In 2007, cellphones were mostly “free” (the cost was hidden in the service contract). Plus however much they made by putting crapware on the phones. Similarly the Facebook devices have their cost hidden in the privacy violations that come built in. It is a “better” business model than the cellphone contracts because it is even harder to figure out how much they are making off you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Apple model wins again.
ianbutler 3y ago
The original iPhone was pretty bad actually. It didn't have many of the unique capabilities compared to what we know. In terms of competitive pricing, I mean yeah if this is just a Quest 2 with better screens its DOA, but I would hope not, though I am keeping expectations low. My only point was Apple does have the capability to pull rabbits out of their hat, not that they will.
andrewjl 3y ago
> The iPhone cost roughly the same as 2007’s competing smartphones that were already selling millions of units (e.g. the Nokia N95), and it offered completely unique capabilities. At the time of launch the iPhone was one of the highest priced (including carrier subsidies) phones on the market.[1] > Today there is a high-volume VR headset in the market, the Quest 2, but the new Apple device is projected to be nearly ten times more expensive and it seems to be more of an incremental advancement of the state of the art. As Ballmer mentions later there were high-volume Windows Mobile phones available at that time too.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXq9NTjEdTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXq9NTjEdTo

bombcar 3y ago

The iPhone worked as an iPod and a phone. It didn’t need to do anything else to already “win” for a few bucks more than both combined.

notatoad 3y ago

Did people really say that about the original iphone? I don't remember that. I remember the iPhone announcement as being a product that basically everybody had been asking for and immediately saw the value in. And the rumour cycle leading up to the announcement was insane - people were so hyped for apple to announce a proper smartphone, it was already a product category. Things like the Palm Treo and the Nokia N95 existed and were relatively popular - handheld computers with phone capabilities as well as full web browsers, email clients, maps, video playback, etc. The iPhone was taking a product concept that had already been proven, and hugely improving the form factor and user experience. Nobody saw the iPhone announcement and said "nah, i just don't see the value there".

wodenokoto 3y ago
Yes. The iPhone was expensive upfront, with an expensive contract to top it off. They did cut the price relatively early.
BryantD 3y ago
Gizmodo loved it, but "The real elephant in the room is the fact that I just spent $600 on my iPhone and it can’t do some crucial functions that even $50 handsets can. I’m talking about MMS. Video recording. Custom ringtones. Mass storage. Fully functioning Bluetooth with stereo audio streaming..." TechCrunch: "That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone. Don’t be surprised if a sizable contingent of iPhone buyers express some remorse at ditching their BlackBerry when they spend an extra hour each day pumping out emails on the road." A ton of people loved it, but it came under heavy criticism for the lack of physical keyboard and the AT&T dependency.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Not enough emphasis can be placed on the existence of a usable web browser on a phone. It did not exist before. Blackberry was great for emails, and Windows mobile was great for propping your door open, but when Safari on iOS came out, even with it being slow 2G and with a buggy keyboard and no copy/paste -- you could use websites on a mobile device -- anywhere. Being able to pull up amazon and check reviews for products while browsing in a BestBuy or whatever was something that just was not practical before and it was a game changer, instantly. Lots of people criticized it for not being able to do basic tasks like copy and paste or the lack of 3G after they bought it. The iPhone didn't suffer at all from the criticism because people saw it as a work in progress -- the AT&T attachment was actually brilliant because it allowed them to make AT&T build their network and offer decent data plans. Before iPhone the data rate was something ridiculous as an add-on to a regular phone plan, and everyone using 2G data all at once brought the network to its knees in dense areas and forced upgrades.