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I was at UIQ back when the iPhone "happened". It really was as pivotal for the industry as he says. I quipped that the iPhone made us irrelevant and Android m

I was at UIQ back when the iPhone "happened". It really was as pivotal for the industry as he says. I quipped that the iPhone made us irrelevant and Android made us redundant. I was surrounded by people with strong ambition and vision, at UIQ, Symbian, at our owners Motorola and Sony Ericsson, who wanted to build the iPhone and knew how to build the iPhone long before the iPhone was announced and before they knew anyone else was doing it. We knew all about capacitive displays, finger-touch and so on. To be honest my own vision was tainted by Flash-based UIs and the mechanics of that, but the Flash demos I was trying to enable were fancy iPhone-like UIs. The artists had the design ascetic that was the iPhone to a tee. But the phone manufacturer upper management were essentially very traditional hardware manufacturers with traditional channel relationships and techie vision was never given much attention. Not taking away from Apple, not saying actually I could imagine it having turned out any different. Its simply that Apple didn't have the management constraints. Apple created new teams to make new products. The entrenched phone makers made existing teams punch out variants and incremental refreshes of the same tired formulae. I imagine it was much the same in Finland too. The big question is, without Jobs, will Apple settle into defending what they have - and punching out variants and incremental refreshes of it - or will they have fresh ambitious restarts?

bobbles 13y ago
Well they do have that "Special Projects" division.. I'm sure they'll be cooking up something nice for 2014.. at least I hope so
- mortenjorck 13y ago
  Yours is not an uncommon sentiment, but it’s not really a fair picture: Observers often see the Apple of the past decade as releasing a category-definer every few years (iPod, iPhone, iPad), and awaiting the next one (iWatch! iScreen!). Really, though, Apple's blockbusters of the 2000s are best seen as one continuous thing: the iPod paved the way for well-designed, vertically-integrated mobile devices (that it was a music player is almost incidental) and the iPhone and iPad are really bookends of a single smart device revolution. Seen this way, Apple has had two world-changing category definers in its history, the Mac and the iOS device. That’s one every 24 years, if we count to the midpoint between the iPhone and iPad introductions. Will they do it again? Maybe, but I wouldn’t expect it to be just around the corner.
  - seiji 13y ago
    Huh whatnow? The original iPod (and modern iPods minus the Touch) don't run iOS at all. The iPod gave Apple the time to stall until they could build what Steve wanted to make in 1999, but the world didn't have the capacity to create yet. These days, Apple is the forefront of both industrial design and fabrication capacity. They aren't in the past—they are in the present and they are moving the world along with them, not waiting for it to catch up to them anymore.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Your parent is grouping iPod/iPhone/iPad. Yes, the original iPod didn't run iOS, but he's just using it as a moniker. We could call them iDevices if that pleases you more. The iPod wasn't just an infusion of cash to keep the company alive, to me it really looks like the start of the whole mobile line that today runs iOS.
    - CmonDev 13y ago
      "they are moving the world along with them" You tried iOS 7, didn't you? I sure hope they are not using "Apple Maps" to move themselves and the world.
      - hrrsn 13y ago
        Apple Maps has come a long way since the iOS 6 launch. Google Maps is still undoubtedly better, but Apple have been working hard on it. iOS 7 is not bad. People are still afraid of change (look at what they said about the original iPhone, now look where we are) but ultimately it was in need of a refresh.
        CmonDev 13y ago
        But they are not "moving the world" in any way except for hardware. iOS 7 is derivative.
        hrrsn 13y ago
- rubinelli 13y ago
  It depends on whether upper management gives special projects the importance they need or not. Almost every large company has a research division, but in most, it is the playground where they keep the guys that are too smart and competent to fire, but that have ideas too radical for main divisions' heads to accept.
girvo 13y ago
UIQ3 was amazing, and my M600i had the greatest keyboard on any phone ever. Thanks for making the OS for one of my favourite smartphones :)4
- Blara 13y ago
  I miss that keyboard, I really do prefer physical keyboards to software ones.
agumonkey 13y ago
I really thought phone manufacturers at the time where aiming for better Windows Mobile phone, and had nothing like the iPhone in mind or at least nothing more than a napkin corner with a 'moon' tag attached to it because some R&D/Designer broke someone's b*lls enough to get a little attention.
downer93 13y ago
design ascetic The words are supposed to be "design aesthetic".
- mcv 13y ago
  Maybe they're going for something extremely minimalistic.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

bobbles 13y ago

Well they do have that "Special Projects" division.. I'm sure they'll be cooking up something nice for 2014.. at least I hope so

mortenjorck 13y ago
Yours is not an uncommon sentiment, but it’s not really a fair picture: Observers often see the Apple of the past decade as releasing a category-definer every few years (iPod, iPhone, iPad), and awaiting the next one (iWatch! iScreen!). Really, though, Apple's blockbusters of the 2000s are best seen as one continuous thing: the iPod paved the way for well-designed, vertically-integrated mobile devices (that it was a music player is almost incidental) and the iPhone and iPad are really bookends of a single smart device revolution. Seen this way, Apple has had two world-changing category definers in its history, the Mac and the iOS device. That’s one every 24 years, if we count to the midpoint between the iPhone and iPad introductions. Will they do it again? Maybe, but I wouldn’t expect it to be just around the corner.
- seiji 13y ago
  Huh whatnow? The original iPod (and modern iPods minus the Touch) don't run iOS at all. The iPod gave Apple the time to stall until they could build what Steve wanted to make in 1999, but the world didn't have the capacity to create yet. These days, Apple is the forefront of both industrial design and fabrication capacity. They aren't in the past—they are in the present and they are moving the world along with them, not waiting for it to catch up to them anymore.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Your parent is grouping iPod/iPhone/iPad. Yes, the original iPod didn't run iOS, but he's just using it as a moniker. We could call them iDevices if that pleases you more. The iPod wasn't just an infusion of cash to keep the company alive, to me it really looks like the start of the whole mobile line that today runs iOS.
  - CmonDev 13y ago
    "they are moving the world along with them" You tried iOS 7, didn't you? I sure hope they are not using "Apple Maps" to move themselves and the world.
    - hrrsn 13y ago
      Apple Maps has come a long way since the iOS 6 launch. Google Maps is still undoubtedly better, but Apple have been working hard on it. iOS 7 is not bad. People are still afraid of change (look at what they said about the original iPhone, now look where we are) but ultimately it was in need of a refresh.
      - CmonDev 13y ago
        But they are not "moving the world" in any way except for hardware. iOS 7 is derivative.
        hrrsn 13y ago
rubinelli 13y ago
It depends on whether upper management gives special projects the importance they need or not. Almost every large company has a research division, but in most, it is the playground where they keep the guys that are too smart and competent to fire, but that have ideas too radical for main divisions' heads to accept.

girvo 13y ago

UIQ3 was amazing, and my M600i had the greatest keyboard on any phone ever. Thanks for making the OS for one of my favourite smartphones :)4

Blara 13y ago
I miss that keyboard, I really do prefer physical keyboards to software ones.

agumonkey 13y ago

I really thought phone manufacturers at the time where aiming for better Windows Mobile phone, and had nothing like the iPhone in mind or at least nothing more than a napkin corner with a 'moon' tag attached to it because some R&D/Designer broke someone's b*lls enough to get a little attention.

downer93 13y ago

design ascetic The words are supposed to be "design aesthetic".

mcv 13y ago
Maybe they're going for something extremely minimalistic.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]