Well, there existed phones that were kind of what smartphones became. Blackberries and Palms get a lot of the attention as they were what executives used, but there were also PocketPC devices that were usually white label manufactured HTC devices that were branded after carriers or some other company like HP. They generally were much larger screened devices with a few buttons at the bottom. They were resistive touchscreens so using your fingers was pretty meh for responsiveness, and the UI was just not designed in a way that was pleasant to navigate. Picture a shrunk down desktop interface. I’d say the UI was the biggest shakeup that they did in the product category, followed by steadily raising the bar for hardware in a space that often would have cheap plastic components. Don’t get me wrong, I think too much glass and aluminum is actually poorer than something like kevlar especially for dents and dings, but it doesn’t look nearly as sexy.
Comment on What DID Apple innovate?
Fake4000@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I might be missing a lot but I feel the iPhone was a complete market segment they created themselves. Android followed a year later.
They also created the tablet market a year or two later.
They also set the trend of earbuds we have nowadays.
Removed headphone jacks.
Removed power adaptors.
There maybe something else that I might have missed.
CynicRaven@lemmy.world 11 months ago
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’d say the UI was the biggest shakeup
I’d say the biggest shakeup was the features Jobs pushed hard in the keynote.
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It was a cellphone and an iPod in one device. Everyone hated having two gadgets in their pocket all day and having to charge two gadgets every night. That was the feature that made the iPhone an obvious product to buy. Something everyone already had, but significantly more convenient.
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It had a keyboard that actually worked well without taking up huge amounts of space. This allowed the device to be both smaller and have a bigger screen than anything else. It was a game changer. PocketPC devices had that too - but typing on them was a fucking nightmare. Using a dinky little plastic stylus to tap 3mm square keys was technically possible, but it was worse than a T9 keyboard.
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It was able to browse the internet. The real, full internet. Everyone working a desk job was used to doing that all day ever day, but now it was possible to do it away from your desk. That was a huge deal and I think by far the most meaningful feature of the iPhone… except it was a product nobody had ever used before, so it couldn’t be the only headline feature.
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otp@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Ah, that makes sense.
Apple was famous for its innovations in market segments and feature removals.
WHYAREWEALLCAPS@kbin.social 11 months ago
Maybe modern Apple, but the GUI wouldn't be where it is today without Apple and specifically Jobs's Macintosh team, especially those who followed him to NeXT and what they accomplished there then brought with them when Jobs was brought back to Apple.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
The first Android was made about 1999.
I was using a Treo with a touch screen before iPhones existed.
I had deployed thousands of Palm Pilots with wifi access, and then Treos, which synced to a desktop app, in the early 2000s.
Smartphones weren’t a new idea, Palm had been on it since the mid 90’s, just waiting for the phone tech to be small enough to pack into a Palm Pilot.
kirklennon@kbin.social 11 months ago
The first Android was made about 1999/2000, I’d read about it in a trade mag just before I was laid off from one company (they provided that trade mag, which is why I know the date). The idea of running Linux for a phone OS was intriguiging at the tomr, as we were doing some Linux testing ourselves.
Android as a company was created in 2003 with no product at all. They started working on a phone operating system in 2005, were acquired by Google, and then had an early prototype Blackberry knockoff in 2006. The iPhone was announced in 2007 so they abandoned the original plans and started making an iPhone knockoff. The first Android phone was released in 2008.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Smartphones weren’t a new idea, Palm had been on it since the mid 90’s
Apple shipped the Newton in 1993. Well before Palm.
Like Palm, it wasn’t good enough (and Apple recognised that - killing it in 1998).
Sure - iPhone wasn’t the first pocket computer and it was a very obvious idea that companies all over the world were working on. Microsoft in particular was working on a new major update to their Pocket PC that was really awesome from all reports. But Apple shipped first. They were the first to ship a good pocket computer. That was real innovation.
sparky1337@ttrpg.network 11 months ago
I remember the first keynote. Jobs kept repeating phrases like music player, web browser, and phone together like that. And then boom, he whipped out the first iPhone that was in his pocket the whole time. While there were similar devices at the time, nothing (to my knowledge) was all one package especially in an all touch device that small.
ripcord@kbin.social 11 months ago
Yeah, people seem to forget just how groundbreaking the form factor, all the swipe and pinch (and multitouch) interface stuff, having one giant touchscreen, the user friendliness if pretty much everything (versus other phones at the time), etc was. Soon everyone was trying to copy it, which is fine. But saying all they innovated was rounded corners and everything else already existed and was just as good is dumb.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There were a lot of little things that aren’t relevant today but were a big deal at the time. For example it had a web browser that actually worked to view the real internet, even though 99% of webpages were designed for screens the size of 30 iPhones.
Today all webpages are designed to work well on small screens - but that never would have happened without Apple. Or at least it would have taken a lot longer to happen. They got enough people using the internet on a phone to force web developers to support small screens. That was a big achievement - even today it’s a massive amount of work to design a webpage that works well with a mouse and with your thumbs. The tools we have now didn’t exist back then, and before Mobile Safari there weren’t any users of small screens anyway so why would anyone put in all that work? It never would have happened.
kirklennon@kbin.social 11 months ago
In the 2007 tech press lull between announcement and launch, there was briefly a made up scandal of accusing Apple of using models with really large hands in promotional photos/videos to make the iPhone look smaller than it was. It's wild to think about now.
atomWood@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Blackberry did all of that years before Apple. Sure, they didn’t have a touchscreen, but all of the capability was there.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 11 months ago
I had a Blackberry Curve and I don’t recall it having a music player. It was also so clunky compared to the iPhone is that it’s almost unfair to say it had the same capabilities. I’m not an Apple fan but I have to grant that their UI was a huge advancement over anything that came before it.
sparky1337@ttrpg.network 11 months ago
I guess it would be better to say they innovated the slate style phone. Android didn’t come out until 2008 and all other top phones used physical buttons. The iPhone technically only had 5 for general functions.
520@kbin.social 11 months ago
The LG Prada did that before iPhone too. More accurate to say Apple popularised it and made it a more cohesive package