4 ms·

Except that looks nothing like the iPhone, while most smartphones now look a heck of a lot like an iPhone.

by YooLi 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
arjn 15y ago
The iPhone looks a lot like the LG Prada mentioned in the article and it predates the iPhone.
- Apple-Guy 15y ago
  Not in reality. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/72B08E9A-D467-45EA-B214-28D3A340C3E5.html http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/72B08E9A-D46...
  - aaronblohowiak 15y ago
    The Prada phone is as similar to the iPhone as the android phones people claim are rip offs of the iPhone. Given the short difference in time between their announcements, it is. Lear they were developed concurrently. Therefore, the android devices are derivAtive more of the Prada phone than the iPhone or the design decisions in common to the iPhone and Prada phone are "obvious"
- jdq 15y ago
  You mean the non-smartphone that was announced a couple weeks before the iPhone? I forget, how was multitouch on it? And the web browser, was it any good?
  - ajross 15y ago
    It's undeniably true that Apple shipped the first good multitouch implementation on a handset. But there were lots of phones with very capable browsers, and a comparatively successful company (Opera) selling them for years before Apple started work on the iPhone. Which of course is the whole point: ideas are items of trade. Someone thinks of something and someone else improves it. That's the way innovation works. Apple has surely done more of it than any other single company, but they've also, like everyone else, "stolen" far more than they invented themselves. Claiming that they have some special ground with the iPhone is just a laughable, juvenile flame war. I wish these would stop.
    - Happer 15y ago
      Indeed they don't have special ground with the iPhone. Except maybe for one "thing". Back in 2007 I joined a new employer. One evening during my new hire training a colleague demo'ed his iPhone he brought over from America to Europe. All other attendees, including myself, were amazed about the multitouch, pinch and zoom photo's, the easiness of use, the awesome GUI and the beautiful design. At the end of the demo there was a deep respectful silence by all of us. Amazement. Thinking about our own phones at the time compared to what we just saw. Then.. the owner of the iPhone put it gently against his face and caressed it. Yes he actually caressed it. I still remember that image. This is the "thing". You know, this thing called love. Something that cannot be traded like an item and which still holds true for many.
j45 15y ago
Hi, just out of curiosity, did you own a smartphone from 96 to the early 2000's? The Treo was the original smartphone. The orignal smart phone that Blackberry copied was the Treo. Apple's spin was ditching the keyboard, but by then even the sony ericcson P800 had a full screen phone with a touch keyboard years before apple. http://www.google.ca/search?&q=sony+ericcson+p800 http://www.google.ca/search?&q=sony+ericcson+p800
- moylan 15y ago
  i'd have said 1996 with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator but it was a niche product that probably didn't appear in the u.s. much. as a psion user i lusted after these devices. but price of mobile data put them out of my reach. i used a psion 5 as my main computer till 99 when i wanted to start ripping cds for an mp3 player amongst other things.
- wmf 15y ago
  I owned a P800 and I consider the iPhone to be in a completely different class. Each of the individual differences is small, but when taken together the feel of using them is quite different.
  - wvenable 15y ago
    To be fair, the P800 had a 150mhz processor and 16 MB of RAM and could display a whopping 4,098 colors. It came out around the same time as Windows XP SP1.
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    > Each of the individual differences is small, but when taken together the feel of using them is quite different. Fair enough, but now you're describing evolution, not revolution.
- gnaffle 15y ago
  The Treo was hardly the original smartphone. Nokia had the Communicator before that, and Alcatel had the One Touch Com in 1996: http://data.motor-talk.de/data/galleries/0/3/7206/16273817/p3140094-large-56259.JPG http://data.motor-talk.de/data/galleries/0/3/7206/16273817/p... Apples spin wasn't ditching the keyboard as so many people think, it was designing the user interface around finger-based touch, making the interface easy enough for normal people to use, and finally to ship a decent performing browser at a time when most other phones were a nightmare to use when browsing the web (try a N95, also released in 2007, to see what I mean)
jrockway 15y ago
The HTC Dream didn't look anything like the iPhone either, but Jobs still says Android is a stolen product. So the question is, what did Android steal from Apple?
- dedward 15y ago
  thats more a personal comment from Jobs...... Apple isnt charging anyone with theft. before thi ihone, no app store no multi touch, litte integration outside of the blackberry, and smartphones and phones in general sucked by comparison. how quickly we forget how crappy what we had before was. sure, previous products had lots f features............ but they didnt blowpeoples minds, or make their companies the most valuable ever.
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    > no app store I wonder what Andy Rubin would say about that...
  - greggman 15y ago
    There were app stores in Japanese phones from 1999. We're not forgetting that they sucked. We're pointing out Apple didn't invent this stuff. Touchscreens, had those for years. Multi-touch? Lots shown in the ARS article. Here's some http://tactiva.com/demo.html http://tactiva.com/demo.html. Includes pinch to zoom, 2 finger rotate objects. Also includes tactile feedback, something no tablet has introed yet AFAIK. Apps, had those too for years. Oh look, it's instructions from 2001 on how to write apps for phones http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/1621/ http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/1621/ App stores? Did you ever bother to look? There's been app stores since at least 2001. None of them were that popular but they did exist. Oh look, my WinCE box boots into a grid of icons in 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/japan/ce/dsc03224.jpg http://blog.greggman.com/japan/ce/dsc03224.jpg Maps, I had 3d first person maps on my 2004 feature phone, something still missing from any iPhones I know of. They had 2d maps in 2000 Games, Yep, last 5 phones I owned before my iPhone all had downloadable games. Here's me playing mappy I just purchased from an online app store in 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/blog/what_s_this_/ http://blog.greggman.com/blog/what_s_this_/ Cameras? Here's pictures from my 2001 cellphone camera http://blog.greggman.com/blog/pictures_from_cell_/ http://blog.greggman.com/blog/pictures_from_cell_/ Facetime? Here's Facetime on a P2101V from 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/blog/more_cellphone_madness/ http://blog.greggman.com/blog/more_cellphone_madness/ Front and back cameras? 2002 http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2002/11/15/my-new-p504is.html http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2002/11/15/my-new-p504is.html Airtime, i.e. TV playback? 2003 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XWLG-6qPwo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XWLG-6qPwo Webpage browsing? Yep. Wrote my first blog post from a phone in 2001. Maybe Apple can claim full browsing first on iPhone though I suspect people have earlier examples. I could certainly view full pages through Opera Mini before iPhone. Music? Several of the phones I owned has music stores built in and some phones advertised how awesome a movie player they were. Synced to PC and everything. Want an iPad? How about the Sony Airboard, 2001. Wireless internet browsing touchscreen tablet http://www.sony.jp/airboard/indexpc.html http://www.sony.jp/airboard/indexpc.html Did Apple take all those features and make them super awesome? YES. The point is THEY TOOK EXISTING FEATURES. They didn't invent them. They just made them way better. Awesome. It's the little details they did well. It's the sum of the parts. It's pretty hard to pick any one thing for which there is no precedence. Cut and Paste? old. Zoom under pointer? Old. Slide to Unlock? Old. Email? Old. Pages of icons? old. They brought awesome style and design but even my old B/W WinCE machine linked above I didn't need or use any of the buttons except POWER and I could use my finger to control everything else.

Except that looks nothing like the iPhone, while most smartphones now look a heck of a lot like an iPhone.

by YooLi 15y ago

Except that looks nothing like the iPhone, while most smartphones now look a heck of a lot like an iPhone.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

arjn 15y ago

The iPhone looks a lot like the LG Prada mentioned in the article and it predates the iPhone.

Apple-Guy 15y ago
Not in reality. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/72B08E9A-D467-45EA-B214-28D3A340C3E5.html http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/72B08E9A-D46...
- aaronblohowiak 15y ago
  The Prada phone is as similar to the iPhone as the android phones people claim are rip offs of the iPhone. Given the short difference in time between their announcements, it is. Lear they were developed concurrently. Therefore, the android devices are derivAtive more of the Prada phone than the iPhone or the design decisions in common to the iPhone and Prada phone are "obvious"
jdq 15y ago
You mean the non-smartphone that was announced a couple weeks before the iPhone? I forget, how was multitouch on it? And the web browser, was it any good?
- ajross 15y ago
  It's undeniably true that Apple shipped the first good multitouch implementation on a handset. But there were lots of phones with very capable browsers, and a comparatively successful company (Opera) selling them for years before Apple started work on the iPhone. Which of course is the whole point: ideas are items of trade. Someone thinks of something and someone else improves it. That's the way innovation works. Apple has surely done more of it than any other single company, but they've also, like everyone else, "stolen" far more than they invented themselves. Claiming that they have some special ground with the iPhone is just a laughable, juvenile flame war. I wish these would stop.
  - Happer 15y ago
    Indeed they don't have special ground with the iPhone. Except maybe for one "thing". Back in 2007 I joined a new employer. One evening during my new hire training a colleague demo'ed his iPhone he brought over from America to Europe. All other attendees, including myself, were amazed about the multitouch, pinch and zoom photo's, the easiness of use, the awesome GUI and the beautiful design. At the end of the demo there was a deep respectful silence by all of us. Amazement. Thinking about our own phones at the time compared to what we just saw. Then.. the owner of the iPhone put it gently against his face and caressed it. Yes he actually caressed it. I still remember that image. This is the "thing". You know, this thing called love. Something that cannot be traded like an item and which still holds true for many.

j45 15y ago

Hi, just out of curiosity, did you own a smartphone from 96 to the early 2000's? The Treo was the original smartphone. The orignal smart phone that Blackberry copied was the Treo. Apple's spin was ditching the keyboard, but by then even the sony ericcson P800 had a full screen phone with a touch keyboard years before apple. http://www.google.ca/search?&q=sony+ericcson+p800 http://www.google.ca/search?&q=sony+ericcson+p800

moylan 15y ago
i'd have said 1996 with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator but it was a niche product that probably didn't appear in the u.s. much. as a psion user i lusted after these devices. but price of mobile data put them out of my reach. i used a psion 5 as my main computer till 99 when i wanted to start ripping cds for an mp3 player amongst other things.
wmf 15y ago
I owned a P800 and I consider the iPhone to be in a completely different class. Each of the individual differences is small, but when taken together the feel of using them is quite different.
- wvenable 15y ago
  To be fair, the P800 had a 150mhz processor and 16 MB of RAM and could display a whopping 4,098 colors. It came out around the same time as Windows XP SP1.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  > Each of the individual differences is small, but when taken together the feel of using them is quite different. Fair enough, but now you're describing evolution, not revolution.
gnaffle 15y ago
The Treo was hardly the original smartphone. Nokia had the Communicator before that, and Alcatel had the One Touch Com in 1996: http://data.motor-talk.de/data/galleries/0/3/7206/16273817/p3140094-large-56259.JPG http://data.motor-talk.de/data/galleries/0/3/7206/16273817/p... Apples spin wasn't ditching the keyboard as so many people think, it was designing the user interface around finger-based touch, making the interface easy enough for normal people to use, and finally to ship a decent performing browser at a time when most other phones were a nightmare to use when browsing the web (try a N95, also released in 2007, to see what I mean)

jrockway 15y ago

The HTC Dream didn't look anything like the iPhone either, but Jobs still says Android is a stolen product. So the question is, what did Android steal from Apple?

dedward 15y ago
thats more a personal comment from Jobs...... Apple isnt charging anyone with theft. before thi ihone, no app store no multi touch, litte integration outside of the blackberry, and smartphones and phones in general sucked by comparison. how quickly we forget how crappy what we had before was. sure, previous products had lots f features............ but they didnt blowpeoples minds, or make their companies the most valuable ever.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  > no app store I wonder what Andy Rubin would say about that...
- greggman 15y ago
  There were app stores in Japanese phones from 1999. We're not forgetting that they sucked. We're pointing out Apple didn't invent this stuff. Touchscreens, had those for years. Multi-touch? Lots shown in the ARS article. Here's some http://tactiva.com/demo.html http://tactiva.com/demo.html. Includes pinch to zoom, 2 finger rotate objects. Also includes tactile feedback, something no tablet has introed yet AFAIK. Apps, had those too for years. Oh look, it's instructions from 2001 on how to write apps for phones http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/1621/ http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/1621/ App stores? Did you ever bother to look? There's been app stores since at least 2001. None of them were that popular but they did exist. Oh look, my WinCE box boots into a grid of icons in 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/japan/ce/dsc03224.jpg http://blog.greggman.com/japan/ce/dsc03224.jpg Maps, I had 3d first person maps on my 2004 feature phone, something still missing from any iPhones I know of. They had 2d maps in 2000 Games, Yep, last 5 phones I owned before my iPhone all had downloadable games. Here's me playing mappy I just purchased from an online app store in 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/blog/what_s_this_/ http://blog.greggman.com/blog/what_s_this_/ Cameras? Here's pictures from my 2001 cellphone camera http://blog.greggman.com/blog/pictures_from_cell_/ http://blog.greggman.com/blog/pictures_from_cell_/ Facetime? Here's Facetime on a P2101V from 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/blog/more_cellphone_madness/ http://blog.greggman.com/blog/more_cellphone_madness/ Front and back cameras? 2002 http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2002/11/15/my-new-p504is.html http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2002/11/15/my-new-p504is.html Airtime, i.e. TV playback? 2003 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XWLG-6qPwo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XWLG-6qPwo Webpage browsing? Yep. Wrote my first blog post from a phone in 2001. Maybe Apple can claim full browsing first on iPhone though I suspect people have earlier examples. I could certainly view full pages through Opera Mini before iPhone. Music? Several of the phones I owned has music stores built in and some phones advertised how awesome a movie player they were. Synced to PC and everything. Want an iPad? How about the Sony Airboard, 2001. Wireless internet browsing touchscreen tablet http://www.sony.jp/airboard/indexpc.html http://www.sony.jp/airboard/indexpc.html Did Apple take all those features and make them super awesome? YES. The point is THEY TOOK EXISTING FEATURES. They didn't invent them. They just made them way better. Awesome. It's the little details they did well. It's the sum of the parts. It's pretty hard to pick any one thing for which there is no precedence. Cut and Paste? old. Zoom under pointer? Old. Slide to Unlock? Old. Email? Old. Pages of icons? old. They brought awesome style and design but even my old B/W WinCE machine linked above I didn't need or use any of the buttons except POWER and I could use my finger to control everything else.