Comment on What DID Apple innovate?
CynicRaven@lemmy.world 11 months agoWell, 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.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’d say the biggest shakeup was the features Jobs pushed hard in the keynote.
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.
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.
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.