this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Apple users bash new iPhone 15: ‘Innovation died with Steve Jobs’::Smart phone fans are griping about Apple's new devices since the arguably anti-climactic announcement of the forthcoming iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus on Tuesday.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Doesn’t mean the iPhone wasn’t revolutionary.

I was (and still am) a mobile app developer at the time. We had every major phone on the market in our office for testing purposes. Literally hundreds of different phones. You name any popular (and less popular) phone on the market at that time and I can guarantee you I’ve used it extensively.

The iPhone was absolutely revolutionary. However, it wasn’t because of a specific piece of technology, it was execution.

Symbian touch-screen phones existed, they were slow and laggy. The UI was nothing like the iPhone, which is built around directly manipulating UI elements with your finger. It seems obvious now, but back then it wasn’t. You could use the touch screen to manipulate a tiny scrollbar.

The closest thing to the iPhone was the LG Prada (KE850), which had a capacitive touch screen and the same scrolling mechanism as iPhone. However, it was small, had a tiny screen and was relatively slow. The software was also very limited, it was basically a feature phone, not a smartphone.

The iPhone was basically the first phone that got all of it right.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The iPhone was an incredibly obvious idea to follow up the iPod.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

LOL no it wasn’t.

Sure, the idea of an apple phone had been out there for a while, but the actual device wasn’t obvious at all. Just look at all the speculation before the event, people making mockups of what they thought the iPhone would look like. Just look at the industry reactions afterwards.

For example, the reaction of blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis

Or the reaction from the people at Google working on Android

It was absolutely revolutionary at the time. The fact that the way it works seems obvious after the fact is testament to how good and revolutionary it actually was. We can’t even imagine things working differently anymore, but it was only obvious after it was revealed.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wow bro you think I'm going to read all that bullshit? Lol. I'm not some genius and even I saw the iPhone coming back then. It was totally obvious if you spent any time thinking about the iPod at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah no. The iPhone looks nothing like an iPod, and no one else predicted anything like the iPhone. But hey, you obviously thought of it.

Even the people working on Android at that time had nothing like it. Initially Android was going to be a lot like a Blackberry. They had to go back to the drawing board after the iPhone announcement. What a shame that Google didn't have a brilliant mind like you working for them, they could have saved all that time and money and worked on the 'obvious' design from day one.