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It was a bit of both. The original iPhone wasn't a hardware revolution, but it was an OS revolution. It was the first time anyone put an OS on a phone that had

It was a bit of both. The original iPhone wasn't a hardware revolution, but it was an OS revolution. It was the first time anyone put an OS on a phone that had a blazing fast graphics layer. Touchscreen phones existed before then, but because of platform performance, was always of the "poke, wait, stuff magically appears, poke, wait, stuff magically appears..." model. Apple didn't just invent new usage models, they invented the platform that made it implementable. The deep integration of UIKit with hardware acceleration, as well as animation as a first-class consideration in the API, were (and still are) some of Apple's greatest advantages.

deleted 13y ago
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mtdewcmu 13y ago
My impression was that the iPhone was fully thought out in advance so that everything would work together. Take away a major piece, and the whole thing stops making sense. It needed a touch screen so that it didn't need a keyboard. There couldn't be a keyboard, because it took space away from the display. Replacing a keyboard with a touch screen was radical at that time, and it had to work really well. People would need visual feedback to be able to interact with it effectively. The visual feedback couldn't lag, so that required fast graphics. And so on...
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Sort of. It wasn't quite such a clear causal chain - there were some things that positioned them well in the first place. Quartz, which is the drawing and compositing engine developed for OSX, is really at the core of it. For one thing, Quartz is really fast, and long before iPhone was even a rumor Apple had already tied it deeply into OpenGL and made it hardware accelerated. Quartz is really the "secret sauce" to the responsiveness and graphics performance of iOS, and it predates iOS by a pretty wide margin. Core Graphics was built on top of Quartz, as well as Core Animation, which form the primary ways third party devs interact with the graphics layer. If Apple hadn't done OSX first, or done it differently, I don't think they could have pulled off iPhone.
  - pohl 13y ago
    CoreAnimation is another great example: it was first made public in the summer of '06. It's easier to see why they were working on such a thing now.
  - mtdewcmu 13y ago
    For sure, it wasn't conceived in a vacuum. Apple's existing IP would have provided essential pieces to make it possible. I've only owned a single smart phone so far, and it's an Android device. But I've noticed that Apple's devices have smoother interfaces. I've wondered how much of that can be traced to platform factors, and how much is simply execution and polish. And whether the OS design, and the difference between ObjC and Java, play a significant role. My impression was that Java was a dog, but it seems to run pretty well on Android. It's possible that with the meticulous attention to detail of a company like Apple, Android could be made as responsive and smooth as iOS. Or, maybe, platform issues make that virtually impossible. It would be more technically intriguing to think that native code and Quartz are decisively better, but I'm leaning toward the more boring explanation that Apple just worked harder on the UI, and expended the effort to do all the little things right. The basis for my opinion is the observation that true explanations are more often boring. I'm not very expert on graphics, but I've had a suspicion that dedicated graphics hardware makes iPhone-type devices possible. Highly-integrated and highly power efficient graphics hardware was only just becoming available when the iPhone was in development. And, as you mentioned, the software layers to take full advantage of it in a GUI wasn't something you could just take for granted.
enraged_camel 13y ago
>>It was a bit of both. The original iPhone wasn't a hardware revolution, but it was an OS revolution. I disagree. Only a very small minority cares about operating systems and revolutionizing them. What the iPhone revolutionized was user experience. For the first time, someone invented a device that was easy to understand, fun to use, and seemingly limitless in capability. When Steve went on stage and showed it off, the minds of everyone in the audience went into overdrive to start imagining all the possible things they could do with it. Both the hardware and the OS were designed to maximize those aspects of the device. This is what sets the iPhone apart from its competitors, who to this day focus on hardware features and software gimmicks. In my opinion neither Android nor Windows Phone have managed to capture and learn to communicate in the higher level thinking that constitutes UX. They are still great operating systems. They just work in a very different context.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  I don't think we're actually disagreeing. I'm not saying that the average iPhone user has remarked "Core Graphics is great! It makes my phone so responsive and fast!". I'd be very surprised if any lay iOS user has ever said that ;) But the idea is the level of interactivity and the UX around iPhone would have been impossible without the platform Apple first built for OSX. Many other manufacturers at the time had UX ambitions like Apple, but were held back by their own platforms. This infamous video comparing the concept renders of the Nokia N97 vs. what shipped really demonstrates this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU It's not that Apple didn't innovate on the UX, they sure as hell did, but rather that they bought themselves a huge lead on the competition by having, for all practical purposes, the only platform around that could even do something like that.
  - mortenjorck 13y ago
    Wow, I never saw that video, but your analysis is spot-on.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  When Steve went on stage and showed it off, the minds of everyone in the audience went into overdrive to start imagining all the possible things they could do with it. Interesting that it wasn't the first time an Apple CEO went on stage and showed off a pocket tablet, and the minds of everyone in the audience went into overdrive to start imagining all the possible things they could do with it. What the Newton, in 1993, revolutionized was user experience. For the first time, someone invented a device that was easy to understand, fun to use, and seemingly limitless in capability. Except it wasn't limitless. The public mind was thrilled with the concept, embraced the wonderous new platform, and got...egg freckles? http://fortunebrainstormtech.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/db930827.gif http://fortunebrainstormtech.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/db9... The OS, hardware, UI, UX, all were revolutionary - and some revolutions fail. Steve killed it promptly upon his return, and I imagine nonetheless studied it a great deal, taking some 13 years between unveilings to get it right, making sure the engaged public didn't overwhelm the second attempt.
BenoitEssiambre 13y ago
That is a fair assessment. I think the part that can really be attributed to Apple is the hardware accelerated, fluid, instantaneous and very polished interface with touch gestures . It's not any one UI component or gesture in particular but the beautiful integration of all of them together. The other thing that iPhone had going for it was the iTunes integration that would save you from having to buy an iPod. This brought a lot of monetary value. For the rest, I remember during the first iPhone reveal thinking it was a more polished, better funded version of the openMoko phone. ( https://www.google.ca/search?q=openmoko&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=CCvMUby-E4H3ygHLtIH4DQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1157&bih=577 https://www.google.ca/search?q=openmoko&safe=off&source=lnms... ) openMoko was an open source, volunteer made project. One thing openMoko had for it was their plan for promoting third party native apps from the get go, whereas Apple blocked them for almost a year. In a 2006 article, a few months prior to the iPhone reveal we get about openMoko: "The Neo1973 is based on a Samsung S3C2410 SoC (system-on-chip) application processor, powered by an ARM9 core. It will have 128MB of RAM, and 64MB of flash, along with an upgradable 64MB MicroSD card. Typical of Chinese phone designs, the Neo1973 sports a touchscreen, rather than a keypad -- in this case, an ultra-high resolution 2.8-inch VGA (640 x 480) touchscreen. "Maps look stunning on this screen," Moss-Pultz said. The phone features an A-GPS (assisted GPS) receiver module connected to the application processor via a pair of UARTs. The commercial module has a closed design, but the API is apparently open. Similarly, the phone's quad-band GSM/GPRS module, built by FIC, runs the proprietary Nucleus OS on a Texas Instruments baseband powered by an ARM7 core. It communicates with Linux over a serial port, using standard "AT" modem commands. The Neo1973 will charge when connected to a PC via USB. It will also support USB network emulation, and will be capable of routing a connected PC to the Internet, via its GPRS data connection. [...] Moss-Pultz adds, "Applications are the ringtones of the future." [...] As for additional software components, Moss-Pultz admits, "Quite a lot is there, and quite a lot is not there. We're hoping to change this." In addition to a dialer, phonebook, media player, and application manager, the stack will likely include the Minimo browser [...] He adds, "Mobile phones are the PCs of the 21st century, in terms of processing power and broadband network access. "

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mtdewcmu 13y ago

My impression was that the iPhone was fully thought out in advance so that everything would work together. Take away a major piece, and the whole thing stops making sense. It needed a touch screen so that it didn't need a keyboard. There couldn't be a keyboard, because it took space away from the display. Replacing a keyboard with a touch screen was radical at that time, and it had to work really well. People would need visual feedback to be able to interact with it effectively. The visual feedback couldn't lag, so that required fast graphics. And so on...

potatolicious 13y ago
Sort of. It wasn't quite such a clear causal chain - there were some things that positioned them well in the first place. Quartz, which is the drawing and compositing engine developed for OSX, is really at the core of it. For one thing, Quartz is really fast, and long before iPhone was even a rumor Apple had already tied it deeply into OpenGL and made it hardware accelerated. Quartz is really the "secret sauce" to the responsiveness and graphics performance of iOS, and it predates iOS by a pretty wide margin. Core Graphics was built on top of Quartz, as well as Core Animation, which form the primary ways third party devs interact with the graphics layer. If Apple hadn't done OSX first, or done it differently, I don't think they could have pulled off iPhone.
- pohl 13y ago
  CoreAnimation is another great example: it was first made public in the summer of '06. It's easier to see why they were working on such a thing now.
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  For sure, it wasn't conceived in a vacuum. Apple's existing IP would have provided essential pieces to make it possible. I've only owned a single smart phone so far, and it's an Android device. But I've noticed that Apple's devices have smoother interfaces. I've wondered how much of that can be traced to platform factors, and how much is simply execution and polish. And whether the OS design, and the difference between ObjC and Java, play a significant role. My impression was that Java was a dog, but it seems to run pretty well on Android. It's possible that with the meticulous attention to detail of a company like Apple, Android could be made as responsive and smooth as iOS. Or, maybe, platform issues make that virtually impossible. It would be more technically intriguing to think that native code and Quartz are decisively better, but I'm leaning toward the more boring explanation that Apple just worked harder on the UI, and expended the effort to do all the little things right. The basis for my opinion is the observation that true explanations are more often boring. I'm not very expert on graphics, but I've had a suspicion that dedicated graphics hardware makes iPhone-type devices possible. Highly-integrated and highly power efficient graphics hardware was only just becoming available when the iPhone was in development. And, as you mentioned, the software layers to take full advantage of it in a GUI wasn't something you could just take for granted.

enraged_camel 13y ago

>>It was a bit of both. The original iPhone wasn't a hardware revolution, but it was an OS revolution. I disagree. Only a very small minority cares about operating systems and revolutionizing them. What the iPhone revolutionized was user experience. For the first time, someone invented a device that was easy to understand, fun to use, and seemingly limitless in capability. When Steve went on stage and showed it off, the minds of everyone in the audience went into overdrive to start imagining all the possible things they could do with it. Both the hardware and the OS were designed to maximize those aspects of the device. This is what sets the iPhone apart from its competitors, who to this day focus on hardware features and software gimmicks. In my opinion neither Android nor Windows Phone have managed to capture and learn to communicate in the higher level thinking that constitutes UX. They are still great operating systems. They just work in a very different context.

potatolicious 13y ago
I don't think we're actually disagreeing. I'm not saying that the average iPhone user has remarked "Core Graphics is great! It makes my phone so responsive and fast!". I'd be very surprised if any lay iOS user has ever said that ;) But the idea is the level of interactivity and the UX around iPhone would have been impossible without the platform Apple first built for OSX. Many other manufacturers at the time had UX ambitions like Apple, but were held back by their own platforms. This infamous video comparing the concept renders of the Nokia N97 vs. what shipped really demonstrates this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU It's not that Apple didn't innovate on the UX, they sure as hell did, but rather that they bought themselves a huge lead on the competition by having, for all practical purposes, the only platform around that could even do something like that.
- mortenjorck 13y ago
  Wow, I never saw that video, but your analysis is spot-on.
ctdonath 13y ago
When Steve went on stage and showed it off, the minds of everyone in the audience went into overdrive to start imagining all the possible things they could do with it. Interesting that it wasn't the first time an Apple CEO went on stage and showed off a pocket tablet, and the minds of everyone in the audience went into overdrive to start imagining all the possible things they could do with it. What the Newton, in 1993, revolutionized was user experience. For the first time, someone invented a device that was easy to understand, fun to use, and seemingly limitless in capability. Except it wasn't limitless. The public mind was thrilled with the concept, embraced the wonderous new platform, and got...egg freckles? http://fortunebrainstormtech.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/db930827.gif http://fortunebrainstormtech.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/db9... The OS, hardware, UI, UX, all were revolutionary - and some revolutions fail. Steve killed it promptly upon his return, and I imagine nonetheless studied it a great deal, taking some 13 years between unveilings to get it right, making sure the engaged public didn't overwhelm the second attempt.

BenoitEssiambre 13y ago

That is a fair assessment. I think the part that can really be attributed to Apple is the hardware accelerated, fluid, instantaneous and very polished interface with touch gestures . It's not any one UI component or gesture in particular but the beautiful integration of all of them together. The other thing that iPhone had going for it was the iTunes integration that would save you from having to buy an iPod. This brought a lot of monetary value. For the rest, I remember during the first iPhone reveal thinking it was a more polished, better funded version of the openMoko phone. ( https://www.google.ca/search?q=openmoko&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=CCvMUby-E4H3ygHLtIH4DQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1157&bih=577 https://www.google.ca/search?q=openmoko&safe=off&source=lnms... ) openMoko was an open source, volunteer made project. One thing openMoko had for it was their plan for promoting third party native apps from the get go, whereas Apple blocked them for almost a year. In a 2006 article, a few months prior to the iPhone reveal we get about openMoko: "The Neo1973 is based on a Samsung S3C2410 SoC (system-on-chip) application processor, powered by an ARM9 core. It will have 128MB of RAM, and 64MB of flash, along with an upgradable 64MB MicroSD card. Typical of Chinese phone designs, the Neo1973 sports a touchscreen, rather than a keypad -- in this case, an ultra-high resolution 2.8-inch VGA (640 x 480) touchscreen. "Maps look stunning on this screen," Moss-Pultz said. The phone features an A-GPS (assisted GPS) receiver module connected to the application processor via a pair of UARTs. The commercial module has a closed design, but the API is apparently open. Similarly, the phone's quad-band GSM/GPRS module, built by FIC, runs the proprietary Nucleus OS on a Texas Instruments baseband powered by an ARM7 core. It communicates with Linux over a serial port, using standard "AT" modem commands. The Neo1973 will charge when connected to a PC via USB. It will also support USB network emulation, and will be capable of routing a connected PC to the Internet, via its GPRS data connection. [...] Moss-Pultz adds, "Applications are the ringtones of the future." [...] As for additional software components, Moss-Pultz admits, "Quite a lot is there, and quite a lot is not there. We're hoping to change this." In addition to a dialer, phonebook, media player, and application manager, the stack will likely include the Minimo browser [...] He adds, "Mobile phones are the PCs of the 21st century, in terms of processing power and broadband network access. "