Genuine question.
I know they were the scrappy startup doing different cool things. But, what are the most major innovative things that they introduced, improved or just implemented that either revolutionized, improved or spurred change?
I am aware of the possibility of both fanboys and haters just duking it out below. But there’s always that one guy who has a fkn well-formatted paragraph of gold. I await that guy.
The iPhone. It was revolutionary when it came out.
It literally created the modern smartphone market. The Palm Pilots and Blackberries of the day couldn’t compare: the iPhone had a FULL BROWSER. It was insane. The team developing Android saw the iPhone and had a real “holy shit” moment, they had to go back to the drawing board and completely start over in order to compete.
Full browser might be an overstatement. It was still a web full of Flash at that time. And it caused a pretty major limitation on the browser. If there wasn’t an app available, you were often SOL. I do think it sped up the demise of Flash on the web considerably.
That’s unironically an innovation right there
Why? It was a decent technology.
No, it absolutely wasn’t, as can testify anyone who actually had to work with it: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/the-death-of-adobes-flash-is-lingering-not-sudden/
https://tedium.co/2021/01/01/adobe-flash-demise-history/
Well, I’m in favor of that approach and I’m not in favor of Microsoft, Google and even sadly Mozilla. Even if used not for Flash but for something else.
That quote alone emotionally moves me personally in the direction opposite of what the author apparently intended.
Then there is, of course, a quote attributed to “famed usability expert”, who meant something completely irrelevant to the point the author is making, judging by that quote being from year 2000.
I’m not sure he’d consider HTML5 better, and judging by his article on Java applets linked and statements made there, the closest thing to his perfect Web would be today’s Geminispace, with which I can even agree in many contexts and which would be the opposite kind of Web from what the author of the article apparently wants to say.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I like the idea of the generally static (maybe just a bit scriptable) hypertext pages with embedded applets executed with plugins. It makes sense if you need an accessible standard. It doesn’t if you need a monopoly which formally isn’t one.
Sure, a browser minus Flash, but it was still a real browser. Most of the web functioned without Flash. And none of the competition even had anything close. It was such a revolutionary product that the iPhone didn’t even HAVE competition until Android got its shit together, which took a couple years.
This. Being able to actually open all those sites that used Flash was a big advantage of Android back then.
Yeah, Android had that advantage LATER, when they got their shit together. But when the iPhone initially released, it changed the game.
In what aspect? There were mobile devices with installable applications. And Samsung already had a phone with that form factor.
I had several Symbian/WinMob phones prior to getting my first iPhone, and I never, ever want to return to those days. Sure, they were fine for the time, but using iOS for the first time was a revelation.
And who bought them before iPhone came out? There were tablets before the iPad. Nobody bought them either.
A lot of people. If you went with idea they sold previously business oriented devices to regular users, I’d give you that. But it’s not like Apple invented that format or form. I advise everyone watch documentary on Springboard, which was really really ahead of its time. When everyone was messing around with dumb phones, Springboard was working on unified device with camera built-in, connectivity, etc. In fact they were too early with their product, ten years before first iPhone. More to the point, Jobs visited Springboard, said their product was shit, and went on to produce the exact same device with better polish, which was a dick move in my opinion, but that’s business. But saying Apple invented smartphones or refined them. No. It’s an iterative process like everything else.
Apple doesnt create products. Apple creates markets. Nobody bought modern phones before the iPhone. They existed, nobody bought them. Nobody bought tablets before the iPad. They existed, nobody bought them. Nobody bought mp3 players before the iPod. They existed, nobody bought them. Everyone bought them after, and not just from Apple.
Lmao. Apple anti-cpmpetively corners markets by preventing their products from working with anyone who actually innovates anything new.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
documentary on Springboard
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Maybe so, but the fact remains that nobody bought mp3 players before the iPod, and everyone bought one after.
I’m aware. That’s a fairly well known criticism of from the iPod announcement from Slashdot that proved to be misguided proving your point. Others may have existed, but the polish and innovation Apple put into them had a huge impact and made them go from a niche product to one for the masses. I agree with you.
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Them building a smartphone around a capacitive touchscreen with a software keyboard was the primary innovation of the iPhone.
A full browser that rendered webpages is not an innovation, that’s a result of increased processing power letting them port more browser code over. Pinch to zoom interfacing on a browser might be an innovation, but a web browser on a mobile phone was not innovative, just iterative.
All the browsers were complete shit though. That was iterative but it felt huge.
Imma let y’all finish but the Palm Pre was the GOAT
I miss webOS dearly. I still have my HP TouchPad. It could put apps in the background and pick up like nothing happened from a recents screen in 2009. IIRC iOS wouldn’t follow suit until 4 years later.
There was also the fantastic cross-device sharing feature. If you had an HP phone as well as the touchpad, and paired them via Bluetooth, you could place phone calls from the tablet, as well as being able to pull up a web browser on the phone and tap the phone against the tablet and have it pull up the same page on the bigger screen exactly where you left off. I’ve never seen anything more recent even attempt something similar. The closest I’ve seen is KDE Connect which adds a button to the Android share menu that opens the URL on a connected tablet, desktop, or laptop. Still all but seamless, but not nearly as cool.
And Exhibition Mode. Downloadable, interactive screensavers for when the device is locked and on its charging pedestal. Apple didn’t start trying to pretend they invented that until 2020.
Early versions of the TouchPad OS even played the Angry Birds slingshot sound when you swiped down to dismiss an app from your recents menu. I miss little touches like that.