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I mean, Ballmer was kind of right about that, for business use. As soon as someone wants to reply to an email now they pull out their laptop. What he didn’t rea

I mean, Ballmer was kind of right about that, for business use. As soon as someone wants to reply to an email now they pull out their laptop. What he didn’t realise is that pulling out your laptop is easy enough that you can lose the keyboard on the phone. But it did mean that the smart phone did indeed fail in the way that he expected, in that the business market that windows was serving at the time did not end up using their iPhone for business tasks. In fact people clung to their blackberries for years for that reason, even after the iPhone became an undeniable hit. The iPhone never became a significant business machine for text. Of course he also did not realise that an entire new consumer market would appear for smart phones too, but if you look back it’s not clear that apple did either. They still pushed a somewhat business angle, not a “literally everyone” angle He was panicking in that interview though for sure, but I think people give him more crap for it than they should

HPsquared 3y ago
Surely a swiping keyboard is faster than the "array of tiny keys" approach. It's a much lighter touch.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  Have you used those tiny keyboards? They were quite amazing
  - pmontra 3y ago
    The T9s were... I'm happy that they disappeared. The qwertys were not bad. I'm swiping on my phone to the amazement of my friends that were never able to learn to do it. That beats tapping keys. However a physical qwerty was better than tapping on a qwerty displayed on a touchscreen. Unfortunately it takes 1/3 or 1/2 of the phone and it's there even when it's not needed.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  And that's this narrow view that perhaps made incumbents missed the big picture. I think the real insight Apple had is that, with phones becoming smartphone, internet, videos, apps, etc people would want a bigger screen rather than a keyboard and a smaller screen even if a physical keyboard might be a bit better to type (and I'm not even sure of that). A radical idea proved a winner. A bit like with SpaceX... I fully expect Arianespace to be like Nokia was, very slow, a lot of bureaucracy, and no-one dreaming of anything really new. The irony is that since they launch from the coast of French Guyana reusable boosters that can land on sea platforms sound like the perfect solution for them...
mytailorisrich 3y ago
He was very smug and he was proved totally wrong. No phone has a keyboard now, including for business and taking into account that people type even more than when they had Blackberry's "email machines"... he was also wrong about the iPhone's pricing and the rest is, well, history: Blackberry, Nokia, and Microsoft were destroyed. It's the same logic with SpaceX: a newcomer is doing something new so obviously they don't know anything and will fail... until they destroy all the incumbents. It's always the same process.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  Well they type on their laptops mainly
  - marcellus23 3y ago
    I don't know what world you're living in where people are avoiding typing on their phones. I feel like I see this observation sometimes from people who don't like smartphone keyboards, as if because you're bad at typing on them, so must everyone else be. But look around next time you're at a bar, on a subway, waiting in line somewhere. People type a lot on their phones. And they're really fast at it.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      Fast yeah. Faster than me on my PC? No way :)
brookst 3y ago
I do far more business email and chat on my iPhone than I ever did on my Blackberry. I think you are being overly charitable to the point of redefining history.

HPsquared 3y ago

Surely a swiping keyboard is faster than the "array of tiny keys" approach. It's a much lighter touch.

bowsamic 3y ago
Have you used those tiny keyboards? They were quite amazing
- pmontra 3y ago
  The T9s were... I'm happy that they disappeared. The qwertys were not bad. I'm swiping on my phone to the amazement of my friends that were never able to learn to do it. That beats tapping keys. However a physical qwerty was better than tapping on a qwerty displayed on a touchscreen. Unfortunately it takes 1/3 or 1/2 of the phone and it's there even when it's not needed.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
And that's this narrow view that perhaps made incumbents missed the big picture. I think the real insight Apple had is that, with phones becoming smartphone, internet, videos, apps, etc people would want a bigger screen rather than a keyboard and a smaller screen even if a physical keyboard might be a bit better to type (and I'm not even sure of that). A radical idea proved a winner. A bit like with SpaceX... I fully expect Arianespace to be like Nokia was, very slow, a lot of bureaucracy, and no-one dreaming of anything really new. The irony is that since they launch from the coast of French Guyana reusable boosters that can land on sea platforms sound like the perfect solution for them...

mytailorisrich 3y ago

He was very smug and he was proved totally wrong. No phone has a keyboard now, including for business and taking into account that people type even more than when they had Blackberry's "email machines"... he was also wrong about the iPhone's pricing and the rest is, well, history: Blackberry, Nokia, and Microsoft were destroyed. It's the same logic with SpaceX: a newcomer is doing something new so obviously they don't know anything and will fail... until they destroy all the incumbents. It's always the same process.

bowsamic 3y ago
Well they type on their laptops mainly
- marcellus23 3y ago
  I don't know what world you're living in where people are avoiding typing on their phones. I feel like I see this observation sometimes from people who don't like smartphone keyboards, as if because you're bad at typing on them, so must everyone else be. But look around next time you're at a bar, on a subway, waiting in line somewhere. People type a lot on their phones. And they're really fast at it.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Fast yeah. Faster than me on my PC? No way :)

brookst 3y ago

I do far more business email and chat on my iPhone than I ever did on my Blackberry. I think you are being overly charitable to the point of redefining history.