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Yes, there were already phones with touchscreens before the iPhone, but they were all using a stylus, which seemed a better choice than a finger at the time, si

Yes, there were already phones with touchscreens before the iPhone, but they were all using a stylus, which seemed a better choice than a finger at the time, since they were more precise. But after the iPhone came out, it quickly became obvious how much better it was to use a screen with a finger with multi-touch than with a stylus. Steve or whoever made the decisions about the iPhone obviously knew very well what they were going for and 100% deserve the success.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
Those stylus touchscreen phones had a 640x480 or an 800x600 resolution and a full web browser. They could use basically any web site on the internet. The first iPhone had a 320x480 screen and could only use web sites that had a mobile version. I figured that access to the entire web was a killer feature that would let the clunkier stylus phones compete successfully with an iPhone. Not a prediction that aged well.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > The first iPhone had a 320x480 screen and could only use web sites that had a mobile version. That's just totally wrong. In fact, IIRC the original iPhone announcement showed a visit to the NY Times website to show how you could scroll around and zoom "full screen" websites. If anything, the ability to navigate "desktop" sites on the iPhone was much better than other phones because those other versions of "full web browser" were clunky incarnations that made it difficult to zoom in and scroll around. It was pinch and double tap to zoom, and finger-on-screen to scroll that made browsing sites on the "normal" web much better than anything else at the time.
  - jochem9 3y ago
    Didn't the iPhone OS also pioneer zooming in to website elements? I.e. double tapping on for instance the content of an article would zoom to the size of the div holding that content. I think that feature made a huge impact on usability of desktop websites on the iPhone.
dingaling 3y ago
> Yes, there were already phones > with touchscreens before the iPhone, > but they were all using a stylus The LG Prada was the first capacitive touchscreen phone and was on sale before the iPhone. Technically its specs were underwhelming, but it was the pioneer of finger-UI.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

Those stylus touchscreen phones had a 640x480 or an 800x600 resolution and a full web browser. They could use basically any web site on the internet. The first iPhone had a 320x480 screen and could only use web sites that had a mobile version. I figured that access to the entire web was a killer feature that would let the clunkier stylus phones compete successfully with an iPhone. Not a prediction that aged well.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> The first iPhone had a 320x480 screen and could only use web sites that had a mobile version. That's just totally wrong. In fact, IIRC the original iPhone announcement showed a visit to the NY Times website to show how you could scroll around and zoom "full screen" websites. If anything, the ability to navigate "desktop" sites on the iPhone was much better than other phones because those other versions of "full web browser" were clunky incarnations that made it difficult to zoom in and scroll around. It was pinch and double tap to zoom, and finger-on-screen to scroll that made browsing sites on the "normal" web much better than anything else at the time.
- jochem9 3y ago
  Didn't the iPhone OS also pioneer zooming in to website elements? I.e. double tapping on for instance the content of an article would zoom to the size of the div holding that content. I think that feature made a huge impact on usability of desktop websites on the iPhone.

dingaling 3y ago

> Yes, there were already phones > with touchscreens before the iPhone, > but they were all using a stylus The LG Prada was the first capacitive touchscreen phone and was on sale before the iPhone. Technically its specs were underwhelming, but it was the pioneer of finger-UI.