6 ms·

None of those have a touch based UI. Touch means finger touches. Very different from a stylus which is only touching one or two pixels at a time. This is ver

by nirvana 14y ago

None of those have a touch based UI. Touch means finger touches. Very different from a stylus which is only touching one or two pixels at a time. This is very easy to sense because the stylus pushes two layers together physically and effectively is closing swithces. A touch is much difeferent, a finger is an amorphous blob over many pixels of a varying shape, and Apple had to figure out how to resolve that into a single pixel you intended to touch (so not the center) and ignore other things like knuckles on the screen, etc. This is a major invention and a major difference, and that is just one part of what made the iOS touch UI. This is the fundamental problem- you and others say nonsense like this, and I don't know if you're simply not well informed about the nature of these technologies, or you don't care and are making arguments because of ideology that you think will work propagandistically. I mean, I guess ofr many people they don't care that they aren't the same thing, they can just pretend like they are in debates like this, right? I really don't know which. I keep hearing people claim that Apple stole from Xerox[1] and here you imply that the palm might have come before the newton and that it is up for debate. What's next? The Mac stole from windows? Seriously, what level of basic understanding of the history and nature of these technologies can I expect here on Hacker News? And do you get off the hook for repeating this nonsense simply because it fits your anti-apple ideology? [1] I shouldn't need this footnote, but due to the aforementioned ignorance or dishonesty, I do. Apple licensed Xerox's early research into what later became the GUI by selling them pre-IPO Apple stock which made Xerox a pretty penny and would be worth over a billion now if they had never sold it.

eropple 14y ago
None of those have a touch based UI. Touch means finger touches. This is dishonestly revisionist, given how common it was to see people thumbing through applications on Palm devices. That Palms came with styluses doesn't mean that they weren't touch-friendly in a lot of ways, and that should be taken into account.
- tomjakubowski 14y ago
  Since I don't know, I thought I'd ask -- were Apple the first to create a multi-touch UI for a phone? That would seem to me to be the major innovation in touch UI if that's the case.
  - vlisivka 14y ago
    No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch
  - catch23 14y ago
    I believe so, according to wikipedia, no other multi-touch phones existed before the iphone.
  - eropple 14y ago
    Apple was neither the first to create a multi-touch user interface (the first consumer multitouch device I know of was the Lemur, but I'm sure that was predated) nor the first to put it in a handheld PDA-ish device or a phone (LG beat the iPhone to market with the Prada--which, incidentally, also used very few physical buttons in favor of software buttons). The entire argument in favor of Apple's patents is bullshit, and nirvana has a history of bad-faith fanboyism on the topic.
    - corin_ 14y ago
      I could be wrong (?) but I think the first Prada was capacitive but not multi-touch.
      - eropple 14y ago
        You are correct - the Prada II was capacitive and multi-touch, not the first one. Mea culpa. It doesn't really change much, though, as "make a [Surface|Lemur|Diamondpoint] handheld" is about as obvious a conceit as one can want.
        nirvana 14y ago
        Whether something is obvious or not is irrelevant to this discussion.... the fact of the matter is, Apple created iOS, they didn't license it. The point I made was that Apple created that component, it didn't exist before. It was not off the shelf (as others were broadly claiming.) Further, "obvious" is silly since nobody did it before them, and it is a post hoc ergo proctor hoc argument.
corin_ 14y ago
> Touch means finger touches. According to who, you? Feel free to argue around the technological improvements Apple have brought, but to argue that everything everybody has always called "touchscreen" isn't that... makes no sense. And even by your strange definition of a "touch based UI", were Apple the first company to create capacitive touch screens? Hell, I don't think they were even the first to create phones using them, if I remember correctly LG beat them to it with the Prada? Not to mention how many people used Palms etc. using their fingers rather than a stylus. As to working out how to ignore stuff like knuckles touching the screen... wonderful, I'm sure Apple did a great job in this area. I haven't used enough devices to really have an opinion of whether they were the first to perfect this, but it's irrelevant. Nobody is claiming Apple haven't done some stuff better than other companies - but even if you can definitively say that they created the first really good touch based UI, that's not the same as creating the first touch based UI. You know what I expect from HN? Civilised discussion. All I've seen from you is rudeness, arrogance and a holier-than-thou attitude that could be summed up by the last part of your profile description.
- hnriot 14y ago
  Of course touch means finger touches. Writing with a pencil or stylus isn't called touching. This is pretty basic stuff, it just seems as though you have some axe to grind with this poster and want to nit pik at semantics, but in doing to it just looks rather childish.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    My overall argument was not about the terminology, but the claim that Apple invented touching with your fingers - so not sure why you picked this one point to disagree with me on if it's a childish semantic. But if "touch means finger touches" in the tech world then what do you call devices designed to be used with a stylus? Not touchscreen? And in general English "touch" doesn't mean "with fingers" either.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
antidoh 14y ago
My fingernail works just fine, and with much finer control than my blob of a finger on an aPhone or iPhone. Apple added some cool stuff, but I definitely interact with my Centro's screen by touch, with very little error.
- nirvana 14y ago
  So you're claiming that Apple licensed Palm OS for iOS? Or did you misunderstand what I was claiming?
antidoh 14y ago
" And do you get off the hook for repeating this nonsense simply because it fits your anti-apple ideology?" Ideology? It's just a phone.
dasil003 14y ago
Apple didn't invent touch UI. Ever been to a restaurant in the last decade?
- mbreese 14y ago
  Who is saying that Apple invented the touch UI? This is a false argument. Apple's patent is on a very specific type of touch interface and the interactions with it. Apple-style multi-touch interfaces did not exist before the iPhone. And if they did, you could be damn sure that whoever did invent it would have been suing Apple left and right.
  - dasil003 14y ago
    nirvana is. In the first two paragraphs of the post to which I replied, he explicitly says that finger-based touch "is a major invention".
    - nirvana 14y ago
      It is, it is not an off the shelf component that apple just bought and assembled as other people were claiming. I think its funny that people are responding to what I said, pretending I said something else, and then others are attacking me for saying what I didn't say... and you're saying I said it! I guess it doesn't matter what I say does it? Everything gets distorted by the google distortion field.
      - stanleydrew 14y ago
        After spending way too much time reading all of these comments, I think I have figured out the difficulty behind most of this subthread: You're simply not clear or precise enough in your comments and statements. It takes you awhile to fully explain what you mean, and in the interim, rather than immediately realizing what has happened and making yourself more clear, you convince yourself that everyone else is crazy for not understanding exactly what you mean. Please don't take this as a personal attack. I am merely observing. I don't think anyone here is out to get you. Most people are well-intentioned and are arguing against the precise statements you've written, not the ideas in your head. If you can't see that, then there may be no hope. But I'm hoping you will re-read some of this thread and come to the same realization. Here's a quote from you: Except that the major parts- like a touch oriented UI- don't exist until Apple develops them. This statement is horribly imprecise if, as I now believe, what you intended to convey was something like: Apple does not merely put together existing pieces of technology like legos. They created iOS from scratch, which represented a significant amount of original work in the area of touch oriented UI. If you slow down a little, and really read what you are about to post to ensure that it reflects the thoughts in your head, I think you'll have a much more successful time debating with others here on HN.
nivla 14y ago
>What's next? The Mac stole from windows? Actually Mac did borrow a few usability from Windows too. 1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane 2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar 3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows 4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon 5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection 6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore 7. System Preferences: Control Panel 8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support 9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab 10. Terminal: Command Prompt While most of these are so obvious and can also be called prior art, standing in Apple's shoes, its an innovation by Windows, they had it in their OS before Apple. If you find the above list funny you know that Apple tried to sue Microsoft for having a GUI. A GUI !!
- antidoh 14y ago
  They also took the multi-button mouse and made it (arguably) better.
  - mbreese 14y ago
    And then they removed the buttons :)
- nirvana 14y ago
  Your response is non-responsive. None of these features were stolen in the original Mac UI from 1984 from windows because Windows did not exist in 1984. My point was people were claiming someone "stole" from something that came out later. Also, most of the things you list appeared originally on the Mac, or the windows "equivalents" really aren't and haven't caught up to the mac. The only thing that the Mac did take from windows-- that's on your list anyway-- is Alt-Tab.
  - nivla 14y ago
    > most of the things you list appeared originally on the Mac Since you seem like a fanboy who loves to make up facts without any basis. Let's iterate over the list one by one in more detail: 1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane -> Appeared in Mac = Mac OS X 10.3 Panther = Two years after the Navigation pane appeared in Windows XP. 2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar -> Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard added an optional Path bar at the bottom of folder windows to display the path of any selected file or folder. Double-clicking a folder in the path opens that folder. This feature first appeared as the Address bar in Windows Vista, which began appearing nearly a year before Leopard shipped. 3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows -> Microsoft first put the Forward and Back buttons of Web browsers into its folder windows with Windows 2000. Oddly, Apple first included only a Back button in the original Mac OS X. It wasn't until version 10.2 Jaguar that a Forward button appeared. 4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon -> Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard adds an option for minimizing, which is turned off by default. Instead of creating a new icon in the Dock, you can have a document window minimize into the application icon it belongs to, as Windows has been doing with taskbar. 5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection -> Appeared in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard which was already implemented in Windows XP. 6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore -> Really? Do I really need to prove that System Restore and Backup n Restore appeared before Time Machine?? 7. System Preferences: Control Panel -> Before Mac OS X, Mac system settings were found in a set of separate files. Microsoft put all the settings in one convenient place. For Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah, Apple stole Microsoft's idea and called it System Preferences. 8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support -> Macs have long been second-class citizens to Windows when it comes to Exchange Server. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard added native support of Exchange Server's 2007's group scheduling, contact, and mail services. 9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab -> Well you agreed to that. 10. Terminal: Command Prompt -> Windows has had the command prompt integrated since the very first version. Apple finally added Terminal finally after the 9th version. Love your products and be loyal to your manufacturers, that is one thing but please don't turn off the logic side of your brain!! If you are going to respond to this comment please backup your statements too.
vidarh 14y ago
I wrote on my Palm Pilot Pro in '98 using my fingers. I preferred it to using the stylus, because it was faster and more comfortable for me. (Incidentally, when I left the job where I used the Palm at the end of '98, it was to work on developing a touch based tablet which had no stylus at all - see one of my other posts in this thread). The stylus on the Palm was optional for better precision. It was by no means necessary. Not only could I write reliably with my fingertips on a Palm Pilot Pro, it was precise enough with my fingers to play games and draw stuff with it. > This is the fundamental problem- you and others say nonsense like this It's quite rich that you claim this when you yourself are making spurious claims about how these devices supposedly couldn't be used reliably with fingers. I can only conclude that you yourself do not have firs thand experience with these devices, or have forgotten how they worked.
- nirvana 14y ago
  The idea that the palm was a touch based UI is simply false. You needed a stylus and the UI was designed for a stylus. You could do some things with fingers and some apps were designed for finger use, where it was appropriate. The reason you needed a stylus is because the technology was not advanced enough to detect finger touches with the accuracy that the iPhone does. Even if Palm had all of the algorithms that apple developed for iOS, the ARM processors in those palms was not fast enough. To claim that Apple invented nothing new because you could get a Palm to react to your finger is frankly a lie. It is a shameful lie, because when you let your ideology drive you to dishonesty, you've lost all integrity. I have given the specifics of how and why my claims are true, but you ignore them, and you post dishonest stuff like this. I genuinely don't know if you are simply ignorant and repeating what you've heard from others how are lying, or you're lying yourself, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. For the record, I have owned Palms and Newtons and Compaq's stylus driven device (iPaq I think it was) etc. None of them could be used completely by fingers and all of them were designed to be used reliably by styluses. I never said they would not react to finger presses at all, and I never said they couldn't be used in a limited fasion with finger presses.... so pretending that I did is yet another dishonesty.
  - qu4z-2 14y ago
DanBC 14y ago
iPhone - 2007 Nintendo DS - 2004 You've shifted the goalposts from "touchscreen" to "touch screens only include things operated by fingers". The DS fits that requirement. Note that makers and sellers of touch screens don't make the distinction that you claim is obvious.
- nirvana 14y ago
  You're now claiming that Apple licensed the Nintendo DS OS and put it in the iPhone, which is so false I don't believe you believe it, and I suspect you've simply become confused about what the discussion is about. I never said there was never a screen you could get a reaction from by touching before the iPhone. Never said that at all. I said that to build the iPhone Apple couldn't just use off the shelf components, they had to invent new ones. Nintendo DS is not running iOS.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    > I said that to build the iPhone Apple couldn't just use off the shelf components, they had to invent new ones. They made refinements to existing technology. > I never said there was never a screen you could get a reaction from by touching before the iPhone. It's hard to know what you're saying - it keeps changing. You said that "touch oriented OSs don't exist until Apple develops them" - (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435702 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435702) People have shown many examples of touch oriented OSs developed independently of Apple, released before iPhone. The screen existed before iPhone. The software to drive those screens existed before iPhone. Integrating that combination into an "OS" has existed before iPhone. And the idea of multi-touch surfaces was shown in a movie (where characters interacted with both big screens and small portable devices) before iPhone was released. You may say that I have ignored the rest of your post that I quote above - > And having seen them, other companies can't replicate them well at all because they don't do the research. > Calling them a lego assembler ignores all the real innovation they do. Step away from the keyboard. Calm down. Maybe you'll realise that people don't feel the need to say "I agree with this bit" because they assume that they not talking to a rabid troll who'll accuse everyone of lying.

by nirvana 14y ago

eropple 14y ago

None of those have a touch based UI. Touch means finger touches. This is dishonestly revisionist, given how common it was to see people thumbing through applications on Palm devices. That Palms came with styluses doesn't mean that they weren't touch-friendly in a lot of ways, and that should be taken into account.

tomjakubowski 14y ago
Since I don't know, I thought I'd ask -- were Apple the first to create a multi-touch UI for a phone? That would seem to me to be the major innovation in touch UI if that's the case.
- vlisivka 14y ago
  No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch
- catch23 14y ago
  I believe so, according to wikipedia, no other multi-touch phones existed before the iphone.
- eropple 14y ago
  Apple was neither the first to create a multi-touch user interface (the first consumer multitouch device I know of was the Lemur, but I'm sure that was predated) nor the first to put it in a handheld PDA-ish device or a phone (LG beat the iPhone to market with the Prada--which, incidentally, also used very few physical buttons in favor of software buttons). The entire argument in favor of Apple's patents is bullshit, and nirvana has a history of bad-faith fanboyism on the topic.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    I could be wrong (?) but I think the first Prada was capacitive but not multi-touch.
    - eropple 14y ago
      You are correct - the Prada II was capacitive and multi-touch, not the first one. Mea culpa. It doesn't really change much, though, as "make a [Surface|Lemur|Diamondpoint] handheld" is about as obvious a conceit as one can want.
      - nirvana 14y ago
        Whether something is obvious or not is irrelevant to this discussion.... the fact of the matter is, Apple created iOS, they didn't license it. The point I made was that Apple created that component, it didn't exist before. It was not off the shelf (as others were broadly claiming.) Further, "obvious" is silly since nobody did it before them, and it is a post hoc ergo proctor hoc argument.

corin_ 14y ago

> Touch means finger touches. According to who, you? Feel free to argue around the technological improvements Apple have brought, but to argue that everything everybody has always called "touchscreen" isn't that... makes no sense. And even by your strange definition of a "touch based UI", were Apple the first company to create capacitive touch screens? Hell, I don't think they were even the first to create phones using them, if I remember correctly LG beat them to it with the Prada? Not to mention how many people used Palms etc. using their fingers rather than a stylus. As to working out how to ignore stuff like knuckles touching the screen... wonderful, I'm sure Apple did a great job in this area. I haven't used enough devices to really have an opinion of whether they were the first to perfect this, but it's irrelevant. Nobody is claiming Apple haven't done some stuff better than other companies - but even if you can definitively say that they created the first really good touch based UI, that's not the same as creating the first touch based UI. You know what I expect from HN? Civilised discussion. All I've seen from you is rudeness, arrogance and a holier-than-thou attitude that could be summed up by the last part of your profile description.

hnriot 14y ago
Of course touch means finger touches. Writing with a pencil or stylus isn't called touching. This is pretty basic stuff, it just seems as though you have some axe to grind with this poster and want to nit pik at semantics, but in doing to it just looks rather childish.
- corin_ 14y ago
  My overall argument was not about the terminology, but the claim that Apple invented touching with your fingers - so not sure why you picked this one point to disagree with me on if it's a childish semantic. But if "touch means finger touches" in the tech world then what do you call devices designed to be used with a stylus? Not touchscreen? And in general English "touch" doesn't mean "with fingers" either.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

antidoh 14y ago

My fingernail works just fine, and with much finer control than my blob of a finger on an aPhone or iPhone. Apple added some cool stuff, but I definitely interact with my Centro's screen by touch, with very little error.

nirvana 14y ago
So you're claiming that Apple licensed Palm OS for iOS? Or did you misunderstand what I was claiming?

antidoh 14y ago

" And do you get off the hook for repeating this nonsense simply because it fits your anti-apple ideology?" Ideology? It's just a phone.

dasil003 14y ago

Apple didn't invent touch UI. Ever been to a restaurant in the last decade?

mbreese 14y ago
Who is saying that Apple invented the touch UI? This is a false argument. Apple's patent is on a very specific type of touch interface and the interactions with it. Apple-style multi-touch interfaces did not exist before the iPhone. And if they did, you could be damn sure that whoever did invent it would have been suing Apple left and right.
- dasil003 14y ago
  nirvana is. In the first two paragraphs of the post to which I replied, he explicitly says that finger-based touch "is a major invention".
  - nirvana 14y ago
    It is, it is not an off the shelf component that apple just bought and assembled as other people were claiming. I think its funny that people are responding to what I said, pretending I said something else, and then others are attacking me for saying what I didn't say... and you're saying I said it! I guess it doesn't matter what I say does it? Everything gets distorted by the google distortion field.
    - stanleydrew 14y ago
      After spending way too much time reading all of these comments, I think I have figured out the difficulty behind most of this subthread: You're simply not clear or precise enough in your comments and statements. It takes you awhile to fully explain what you mean, and in the interim, rather than immediately realizing what has happened and making yourself more clear, you convince yourself that everyone else is crazy for not understanding exactly what you mean. Please don't take this as a personal attack. I am merely observing. I don't think anyone here is out to get you. Most people are well-intentioned and are arguing against the precise statements you've written, not the ideas in your head. If you can't see that, then there may be no hope. But I'm hoping you will re-read some of this thread and come to the same realization. Here's a quote from you: Except that the major parts- like a touch oriented UI- don't exist until Apple develops them. This statement is horribly imprecise if, as I now believe, what you intended to convey was something like: Apple does not merely put together existing pieces of technology like legos. They created iOS from scratch, which represented a significant amount of original work in the area of touch oriented UI. If you slow down a little, and really read what you are about to post to ensure that it reflects the thoughts in your head, I think you'll have a much more successful time debating with others here on HN.

nivla 14y ago

>What's next? The Mac stole from windows? Actually Mac did borrow a few usability from Windows too. 1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane 2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar 3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows 4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon 5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection 6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore 7. System Preferences: Control Panel 8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support 9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab 10. Terminal: Command Prompt While most of these are so obvious and can also be called prior art, standing in Apple's shoes, its an innovation by Windows, they had it in their OS before Apple. If you find the above list funny you know that Apple tried to sue Microsoft for having a GUI. A GUI !!

antidoh 14y ago
They also took the multi-button mouse and made it (arguably) better.
- mbreese 14y ago
  And then they removed the buttons :)
nirvana 14y ago
Your response is non-responsive. None of these features were stolen in the original Mac UI from 1984 from windows because Windows did not exist in 1984. My point was people were claiming someone "stole" from something that came out later. Also, most of the things you list appeared originally on the Mac, or the windows "equivalents" really aren't and haven't caught up to the mac. The only thing that the Mac did take from windows-- that's on your list anyway-- is Alt-Tab.
- nivla 14y ago
  > most of the things you list appeared originally on the Mac Since you seem like a fanboy who loves to make up facts without any basis. Let's iterate over the list one by one in more detail: 1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane -> Appeared in Mac = Mac OS X 10.3 Panther = Two years after the Navigation pane appeared in Windows XP. 2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar -> Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard added an optional Path bar at the bottom of folder windows to display the path of any selected file or folder. Double-clicking a folder in the path opens that folder. This feature first appeared as the Address bar in Windows Vista, which began appearing nearly a year before Leopard shipped. 3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows -> Microsoft first put the Forward and Back buttons of Web browsers into its folder windows with Windows 2000. Oddly, Apple first included only a Back button in the original Mac OS X. It wasn't until version 10.2 Jaguar that a Forward button appeared. 4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon -> Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard adds an option for minimizing, which is turned off by default. Instead of creating a new icon in the Dock, you can have a document window minimize into the application icon it belongs to, as Windows has been doing with taskbar. 5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection -> Appeared in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard which was already implemented in Windows XP. 6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore -> Really? Do I really need to prove that System Restore and Backup n Restore appeared before Time Machine?? 7. System Preferences: Control Panel -> Before Mac OS X, Mac system settings were found in a set of separate files. Microsoft put all the settings in one convenient place. For Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah, Apple stole Microsoft's idea and called it System Preferences. 8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support -> Macs have long been second-class citizens to Windows when it comes to Exchange Server. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard added native support of Exchange Server's 2007's group scheduling, contact, and mail services. 9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab -> Well you agreed to that. 10. Terminal: Command Prompt -> Windows has had the command prompt integrated since the very first version. Apple finally added Terminal finally after the 9th version. Love your products and be loyal to your manufacturers, that is one thing but please don't turn off the logic side of your brain!! If you are going to respond to this comment please backup your statements too.

vidarh 14y ago

I wrote on my Palm Pilot Pro in '98 using my fingers. I preferred it to using the stylus, because it was faster and more comfortable for me. (Incidentally, when I left the job where I used the Palm at the end of '98, it was to work on developing a touch based tablet which had no stylus at all - see one of my other posts in this thread). The stylus on the Palm was optional for better precision. It was by no means necessary. Not only could I write reliably with my fingertips on a Palm Pilot Pro, it was precise enough with my fingers to play games and draw stuff with it. > This is the fundamental problem- you and others say nonsense like this It's quite rich that you claim this when you yourself are making spurious claims about how these devices supposedly couldn't be used reliably with fingers. I can only conclude that you yourself do not have firs thand experience with these devices, or have forgotten how they worked.

nirvana 14y ago
The idea that the palm was a touch based UI is simply false. You needed a stylus and the UI was designed for a stylus. You could do some things with fingers and some apps were designed for finger use, where it was appropriate. The reason you needed a stylus is because the technology was not advanced enough to detect finger touches with the accuracy that the iPhone does. Even if Palm had all of the algorithms that apple developed for iOS, the ARM processors in those palms was not fast enough. To claim that Apple invented nothing new because you could get a Palm to react to your finger is frankly a lie. It is a shameful lie, because when you let your ideology drive you to dishonesty, you've lost all integrity. I have given the specifics of how and why my claims are true, but you ignore them, and you post dishonest stuff like this. I genuinely don't know if you are simply ignorant and repeating what you've heard from others how are lying, or you're lying yourself, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. For the record, I have owned Palms and Newtons and Compaq's stylus driven device (iPaq I think it was) etc. None of them could be used completely by fingers and all of them were designed to be used reliably by styluses. I never said they would not react to finger presses at all, and I never said they couldn't be used in a limited fasion with finger presses.... so pretending that I did is yet another dishonesty.
- qu4z-2 14y ago

DanBC 14y ago

iPhone - 2007 Nintendo DS - 2004 You've shifted the goalposts from "touchscreen" to "touch screens only include things operated by fingers". The DS fits that requirement. Note that makers and sellers of touch screens don't make the distinction that you claim is obvious.

nirvana 14y ago
You're now claiming that Apple licensed the Nintendo DS OS and put it in the iPhone, which is so false I don't believe you believe it, and I suspect you've simply become confused about what the discussion is about. I never said there was never a screen you could get a reaction from by touching before the iPhone. Never said that at all. I said that to build the iPhone Apple couldn't just use off the shelf components, they had to invent new ones. Nintendo DS is not running iOS.
- DanBC 14y ago
  > I said that to build the iPhone Apple couldn't just use off the shelf components, they had to invent new ones. They made refinements to existing technology. > I never said there was never a screen you could get a reaction from by touching before the iPhone. It's hard to know what you're saying - it keeps changing. You said that "touch oriented OSs don't exist until Apple develops them" - (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435702 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435702) People have shown many examples of touch oriented OSs developed independently of Apple, released before iPhone. The screen existed before iPhone. The software to drive those screens existed before iPhone. Integrating that combination into an "OS" has existed before iPhone. And the idea of multi-touch surfaces was shown in a movie (where characters interacted with both big screens and small portable devices) before iPhone was released. You may say that I have ignored the rest of your post that I quote above - > And having seen them, other companies can't replicate them well at all because they don't do the research. > Calling them a lego assembler ignores all the real innovation they do. Step away from the keyboard. Calm down. Maybe you'll realise that people don't feel the need to say "I agree with this bit" because they assume that they not talking to a rabid troll who'll accuse everyone of lying.