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> The first two iPhones weren't as innovative as they make them Yes they were. Multi-touch in particular was a revelation. Making a big screen with one physica
by TillE 3y ago
> The first two iPhones weren't as innovative as they make them
Yes they were. Multi-touch in particular was a revelation. Making a big screen with one physical button is a simple idea, but making it work well was the hard part that nobody else had figured out.
Those first iPhones were dog slow, sure, but they absolutely defined how smartphones work ever since.
- chasd00 3y agodon't forget pinch to zoom/expand on actual webpages in an actual web browser.
- epolanski 3y agoDo you remember the first phone that allowed you to play music? No. The first one to take photos? No. The first with internet? No. Yet we're supposed to give to consider the iphone a revelation because of multi touch. I had the iphone 3g. It was a more polished experience than other phones but that revelation part was just not there. Apps made it big, later. I swear people treat iPhones like a cult.
- atonse 3y agoI think if you find a good, objective history of the first iPhone, you'll find that it was groundbreaking in many meaningful ways. It was a full unix OS, not some mobile-specific trash like the others (Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry). Capacitive touch wasn't an invention, but a premium form of touchscreens (most were resistive). Having nearly 60fps high quality 3d accelerated animations on a phone also contributed to a heavily premium feeling for the software. It enabled things like Inertial Scrolling, which among other things (like first class typography afforded by using OS X, and a fully standards compliant web browser), none of which were "innovations" in the sense of "we came up with this first", but more exceptionally good engineering in service of a great experience. In almost every way (apart from the "traditional phone metrics" like 2G ironically), the iPhone was a huuuuuge leap forward from the status quo. It might be true that anyone else could've done it. But nobody else did. It wasn't just luck that Apple did.
- mbreese 3y agoI had phones before the iPhone that took pictures and played music (and a Nokia tablet with wifi internet browsing). The iPhone was the first one that I actually used to take pictures and play music. It wasn’t the first to have those features (and the edge network was super slow), but that polished experience is what made it work. And made it clear to everyone how we would interact with phones for decades to come. It was a technological inflection point. That’s why it is looked back on the was it is.
- CamperBob2 3y agoMultitouch was a huge deal because it allowed a usable Web browser to be offered. That was something no other phone came within a light year of providing. There was a "cult," all right. It consisted of people like Steve Ballmer plugging their ears, shutting their eyes, and denying the obvious.
- Aeolun 3y ago> Those first iPhones were dog slow, sure, but they absolutely defined how smartphones work ever since. I don’t think this was my experience at all. The first iPhone was always snappy until they started adding random crap everywhere (e.g. by the release of the iPhone 4 the original was near worthless without really old firmware)
- zmmmmm 3y agoyep ... i'm generally downplaying Apple's "innovations" but I will say, there was huge scepticism that you could have a phone without a physical keyboard and Apple overnight turned that around. That was a real contribution, IMHO much bigger than anything in Vision OS so far.