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> Making a touchscreen phone had been the writing on the wall and pretty obvious to many. Really. This reminds of this discussion https://reddit.com/r/oculus

by chx 3y ago

> Making a touchscreen phone had been the writing on the wall and pretty obvious to many. Really. This reminds of this discussion https://reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1wdp6n/what_makes_the_oculus_different_from_previous_vr/ https://reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1wdp6n/what_makes_the_o... I opened a decade ago asking "What makes the Oculus different from previous VR?" and the winning answer was pointing out how much the 1994 IBM Simon Smartphone feature list resembled on the surface the iPhone feature list. In other words, still watching the world through my own eyes, I have been a columnist of the largest computer monthly in Hungary from 1993 to 2001. Yes, the IBM Simon, the Nokia Communicator, the Palm, the Pocket PC, yes those were there But none of that meant anyone could have foreseen the iPhone. Android history articles often mention how Google essentially needed to restart because of how revolutionary it was! https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d... if there was a prophet who could foretell the iPhone their words didn't register in Mountain View, that's for sure. If you think anyone did, the Internet does not forget, link it.

sho_hn 3y ago
I'm not talking about columnists. Journalists are not people who build things. I'm talking about people who build things and think about what to build next. The option of doing away with the hardware keyboard and going touchscreen-only was always there and always up for discussion, but for the longest time not easy due to the power and performance envelope at the price point. Lots of devices already worked like this outside of phones, for example a lot of touchscreen kiosk hardware (e.g. ATMs). It's just not a particularly big leap of the imagination to do this in a phone form factor. It was also present in mobile form in plenty of media and scifi, e.g. 2001's tablets. What matters is whether you think you can pull it off, and whether you're willing to try, and whether you are able to identify the right moment to try. A lot of companies were not willing to try (e.g. out of fear of cannibalizing existing product lines or rejection by the customer). Others didn't have the tech stack necessary to do so. What Apple did right is to have the good sense (or luck) to try it when the technology supply chain to back it was there, and not do it too early. Other phone makers wrote their tech stacks for much lower-power devices, and really struggled to scale their existing operating systems, dev community, etc. up to making a richer device, and didn't have the ambition to push for it. Apple started, as OP pointed out, by scaling down a desktop-class OS at a point where the hardware had just made it possible, and this worked out well. What made the iPhone a success wasn't just the form factor, it was also e.g. having a proper web browser (which Apple didn't even write themselves). This pattern replicates in a few other aspects of the device (supply chain for capacitive touch, batteries, etc.) The iPhone is a fantastic success story of a good product concept, waiting for the right moment, sensible tech choices, solid tech asset management by a software company, very good industrialization, and great execution and integration. It's not a magic fairy-tale unicorn idea that no on else could think of. It's annoying because it misrepresents and misunderstands what it takes to make a good product, and leads to internalizing the wrong lessons and values. It's one of the subtle reasons why there aren't more Apples.
- astrange 3y ago
  The novelty in the iPhone wasn't a touchscreen, it was a capacitative multitouch screen and a UI framework that could do their app designs but still at 60fps. Although the last one wasn't purely technical; IIRC Nokia got it, decided it was cool "because it was 60fps", tried to compete just by doing that and failed. > having a proper web browser (which Apple didn't even write themselves) Yeah they did. There wasn't that much KHTML in there at that point.
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    > The novelty in the iPhone wasn't a touchscreen, it was a capacitative multitouch screen and a UI framework that could do their app designs but still at 60fps. I'd agree with this, but it's also not the narrative I was arguing against :-)
    - candiodari 3y ago
      In other words: it was the attitude espoused by John Carmack more than Steve Jobs. New technology creates a new market IF you can make it work brilliantly well. And, frankly, Carmack's "trick", which he does but doesn't admit to, is to rewrite everything from scratch every time he makes a release (more or less). That's how, that's why he got so incredibly good at it. Innovate once, optimize 10x (by throwing away what you got), repeat. Companies don't do that, because it means having a department make tech demos and nothing else. Again, and again, and again, the SAME tech demo.
- voisin 3y ago
  > I'm talking about people who build things and think about what to build next. The market leader in smart phones, BlackBerry (RIM), with some of the best engineering talent in this space anywhere, didn’t see it coming. Their technical co-CEO didn’t believe it in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. Couldn’t imagine how the battery could manage all that. Immediately dismissed it as some sort of trickery. So… I think you’re wrong on this.
  - 3y ago

by chx 3y ago

sho_hn 3y ago

I'm not talking about columnists. Journalists are not people who build things. I'm talking about people who build things and think about what to build next. The option of doing away with the hardware keyboard and going touchscreen-only was always there and always up for discussion, but for the longest time not easy due to the power and performance envelope at the price point. Lots of devices already worked like this outside of phones, for example a lot of touchscreen kiosk hardware (e.g. ATMs). It's just not a particularly big leap of the imagination to do this in a phone form factor. It was also present in mobile form in plenty of media and scifi, e.g. 2001's tablets. What matters is whether you think you can pull it off, and whether you're willing to try, and whether you are able to identify the right moment to try. A lot of companies were not willing to try (e.g. out of fear of cannibalizing existing product lines or rejection by the customer). Others didn't have the tech stack necessary to do so. What Apple did right is to have the good sense (or luck) to try it when the technology supply chain to back it was there, and not do it too early. Other phone makers wrote their tech stacks for much lower-power devices, and really struggled to scale their existing operating systems, dev community, etc. up to making a richer device, and didn't have the ambition to push for it. Apple started, as OP pointed out, by scaling down a desktop-class OS at a point where the hardware had just made it possible, and this worked out well. What made the iPhone a success wasn't just the form factor, it was also e.g. having a proper web browser (which Apple didn't even write themselves). This pattern replicates in a few other aspects of the device (supply chain for capacitive touch, batteries, etc.) The iPhone is a fantastic success story of a good product concept, waiting for the right moment, sensible tech choices, solid tech asset management by a software company, very good industrialization, and great execution and integration. It's not a magic fairy-tale unicorn idea that no on else could think of. It's annoying because it misrepresents and misunderstands what it takes to make a good product, and leads to internalizing the wrong lessons and values. It's one of the subtle reasons why there aren't more Apples.

astrange 3y ago
The novelty in the iPhone wasn't a touchscreen, it was a capacitative multitouch screen and a UI framework that could do their app designs but still at 60fps. Although the last one wasn't purely technical; IIRC Nokia got it, decided it was cool "because it was 60fps", tried to compete just by doing that and failed. > having a proper web browser (which Apple didn't even write themselves) Yeah they did. There wasn't that much KHTML in there at that point.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  > The novelty in the iPhone wasn't a touchscreen, it was a capacitative multitouch screen and a UI framework that could do their app designs but still at 60fps. I'd agree with this, but it's also not the narrative I was arguing against :-)
  - candiodari 3y ago
    In other words: it was the attitude espoused by John Carmack more than Steve Jobs. New technology creates a new market IF you can make it work brilliantly well. And, frankly, Carmack's "trick", which he does but doesn't admit to, is to rewrite everything from scratch every time he makes a release (more or less). That's how, that's why he got so incredibly good at it. Innovate once, optimize 10x (by throwing away what you got), repeat. Companies don't do that, because it means having a department make tech demos and nothing else. Again, and again, and again, the SAME tech demo.
voisin 3y ago
> I'm talking about people who build things and think about what to build next. The market leader in smart phones, BlackBerry (RIM), with some of the best engineering talent in this space anywhere, didn’t see it coming. Their technical co-CEO didn’t believe it in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. Couldn’t imagine how the battery could manage all that. Immediately dismissed it as some sort of trickery. So… I think you’re wrong on this.
- 3y ago