Seven Years Ago Today, Steve Jobs Introduced the iPhone

[Macyourdayy]

Apple needed Google back then. That's likely a major reason why Jobs invited Schmidt onto the board.

Just imagine the iPhone debut without Google Search or Google Maps. No pins dropping. No funny coffee order.

And then a bit later on, imagine the iPhone without any YouTube videos converted by Google to run. Jobs might've well had to allow Flash.

Not to mention Google cell tower locating to make up for the lack of GPS in the original model. (It's even more ironic that their cell database was built up by pre-iPhone smartphones that were using Google Maps.)

Google cell tower locating.....seriously? They were never "google" maps. Have you ever seen google maps and the associated garbage thrown at you. It was only the last couple of years of using google data that Maps actually started giving a reasonable percentage of useful hits. In the beginning it was 90% totally irrelevant and unrelated rubbish. The only thing that worked consistently was location, which had nothing to do with google. The google app so was excruciating, I used it about five times before deleting it, and still don't bother installing it. Have you not noticed that google results are more like yahoo and the rest from the 90's now than when it started?
As far as your precious flash is concerned, the toxic dumping ground of the internet, there is no way it could ever run on a mobile device that needed to run more than an hour on a charge. If things needed to have moving pictures on mobile, it had to be HTML5 or related. I don't know about you, but for the first three or four years, the most I could get youtoob vids to play was about five to ten seconds before excruciating wait time and two second stutters made me give up in disgust.
Schmidt and google probably seemed like a good alliance against the Microsoft hegemony in the early 2000's, till they started stabbing Steve in the back. That Russian prick probably had ex an KGB'er stab Steve with one of their favourite radioactive toxins, like they did to other threats to the mother country.
It'd be a laugh if google was actually developed and funded by the soviets to data mine the planet. It would account for a lot of their behavior and tactics.

 

[Macyourdayy]

Hahaha, ***** Steve Ballmer...laughing off the iPhone. What a fool he was!

Even for ballmer, that was probably just for public consumption. Tech boardrooms around the world were seeing their lives "flash" before them and soiling their underwear.

 

[carjakester]

funny to see how much more interactive with the crowd steve was, he had them leaning in, there wasn't a person in there that didn't look amazed.

 

[Renzatic]

Snip

...yeaaaah, OKKAAAY!

I love how Google Maps was great, and everyone loved it up until the point Apple released their own maps. Now it's all about how it never worked, and the only reason anyone ever used it was because there wasn't anything else.

 

[Macyourdayy]

So, you(and Steve) are now the authority on the definition of a smartphone.

Duh, yeah. Rolleyes. The treo and palm and Winblows devices were the closest things to a glorified calculator with contacts device, but the iPhone was never just a smart phone. It was actually a computer in your pocket. The smartphone name was used by Steve to fool the idiot competition into thinking about phones, not computers. And it obviously worked.

 

[Renzatic]

Duh, yeah. Rolleyes. The treo and palm and Winblows devices were the closest things to a glorified calculator with contacts device, but the iPhone was never just a smart phone. It was actually a computer in your pocket. The smartphone name was used by Steve to fool the idiot competition into thinking about phones, not computers. And it obviously worked.

You're kidding right? I wanna think you're being sarcastic, but there are people here who actually believe Google puts radios in their teeth and distributes their medical records to advertisers, so it's kinda hard to tell...

 

[Macyourdayy]

...yeaaaah, OKKAAAY!

I love how Google Maps was great, and everyone loved it up until the point Apple released their own maps. Now it's all about how it never worked, and the only reason anyone ever used it was because there wasn't anything else.

I never said the apple maps were initially great (they have improved remarkably), just that Maps most useful feature was location and, er, maps. The search for non location based info was usually rubbish at least outside the US. The youtoob app was just something that couldn't be deleted, like stocks and weather.

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You're kidding right? I wanna think you're being sarcastic, but there are people here who actually believe Google puts radios in their teeth and distributes their medical records to advertisers, so it's kinda hard to tell...

Just their medical records?

 

[Wiesenlooser]

"Its got a three and a half inch screen on it. It's really big."

Best line.

It's a line many fanboys should think about. 3.5" was considered huge at that time. For years apple fanboys were like "it's 3.5" because it's the perfect screen size"

Fact is they probably couldn't have made the screen bigger cause the battery would last for few hours.

 

[Technarchy]

These men changed the way the world computes and communicates.

iPhone...so obvious that no one else had anything remotely similar.

What were the android guys doing?

And what was the best they could accomplish after seeing Apple's "obviousness"?

 

[KPOM]

Yes, but the "they" that was Apple at that point changed into Steve Jobs, and at that point they could claim that these were Steve Jobs innovations.

That's a stretch. NextStep didn't achieve commercial success until it was incorporated into OS X. By that time, it was Apple playing catch-up. Plus, it isn't as if Apple just suddenly shipped Macs with NextStep after Steve Jobs took over. It took several years before OS X was released.

----------

...yeaaaah, OKKAAAY!

I love how Google Maps was great, and everyone loved it up until the point Apple released their own maps. Now it's all about how it never worked, and the only reason anyone ever used it was because there wasn't anything else.

I do recall lots of gripes about how it was a lesser experience on iOS than Android (there was no navigation) because Apple and Google couldn't come to terms on navigation data. Suddenly when Apple created its own Maps, Google added navigation to Google Maps for iOS.

 

[Renzatic]

I never said the apple maps were initially great (they have improved remarkably), just that Maps most useful feature was location and, er, maps. The search for non location based info was usually rubbish at least outside the US. The youtoob app was just something that couldn't be deleted, like stocks and weather.

The POIs were a little weak (and still are, admittedly. Neither Apple nor Google get them 100% right), but for getting directions from A to B, finding a street, scanning satellite shots, or using the ever popular streetview, it couldn't be beat. It did and still does offer a more complete package than most.

Just their medical records?

They don't sell your medical records.

 

[Max(IT)]

Crappy Symbian toys? Well, it had a nice Google Maps app (with Google Buzz support), Gmail native app, Nokia Maps (I traveled by car through Italy guided by Nokia Maps navigation). Seriously, you never had a N95 or didn't used so much time. Probably you took an iPhone after a couple of months owning a N95. Also, this 2007 "dinosaur" had Flickr sharing support, allowing sending pictures taken with that (at the time) very nice 5MP autofocus camera. Which phone was a toy?

Actually not. I didn't buy iPhone because it wasn't commercialized in Italy. My first iPhone was iPhone 3G.
I owned Nokia N80 and N95 .... my first Symbian was the Nokia 7650, then the Nokia 6600, the Nokia 6680, N80, N95 and my last Symbian was the Nokia 5800, a ridiculous resistive touchscreen with a messy UI. During those years I used to change a smartphone every 6-8 months .... until I discovered the iPhone 3G.

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Memories! I had a company phone similar to that one around 1993.

Back then, there was no such thing as automatic roaming in many parts of the US. I remember a long trip driving from Canada down through the Dakotas to Colorado, while talking almost continuously on the phone.

Every time I passed from one carrier's towers to another, the call would drop. I had to dial the 800 roaming access number for that particular area, enter a code PIN, then enter the number I wanted to dial. It was a tedious mess to stay connected.

Its battery barely lasted for 12 hours, so it had a spare battery in the package (with a dual batteries charger). BTW my first contracts was so expensive that I had to make very shorts phone calls
It was like 1$ per minute during the day and 50 cents per minutes after 8.00PM in the evening ...

 

[Max(IT)]

Well, thanks to my Galaxy Note, I don't need having a tablet AND a smartphone. If it had processing power enough to serve as a mobile workstation, it would be even better. I'm only sorry for the camera which doesn't beat my 'old' Nokia N8 with 12MP in an 1/1.8" sensor.

I'm not talking only about specs. Let's talk about software: what can you say about the fact that iPhone doesn't have a decent Swype keyboard alternative? You can argue that "iPhone virtual keyboard is the best", but it's clearly not the case. So let's talk about browsing the device's filesystem. You can say "no one should browse a phone's filesystem". Again, you would be wrong. Not allowing filesystem browsing is a business restriction. Users are always thankful for more features. If you want make a user interface cleaner, hiding exoteric features, it's easy to add advanced options in a deep menu allowing users to unlock them if he/she wants.

However, I agree that the first iPhone was beautiful, did elegantly basic smartphone stuff through a touchscreen.

Well my point is that I DONT WANT to have with me a tablet and a smartphone. Most of the time I just need a sleek and very portable smartphone with me, like my iPhone, and when I need a tablet, I want my full size iPad, not a 6" device.

Swype keyboard ? I tried it on my wife's S4 and on my son's S3 and I found it veeeery distant from my needs. Oh please let the usual "browsing file system" argument out of this thread: I don't see a single reason to use it. Actually I don't want to know what is inside my file system, I just want it to works flawlessly.

 

[Poisonivy326]

Google cell tower locating.....seriously? They were never "google" maps. Have you ever seen google maps and the associated garbage thrown at you. It was only the last couple of years of using google data that Maps actually started giving a reasonable percentage of useful hits. In the beginning it was 90% totally irrelevant and unrelated rubbish. The only thing that worked consistently was location, which had nothing to do with google. The google app so was excruciating, I used it about five times before deleting it, and still don't bother installing it. Have you not noticed that google results are more like yahoo and the rest from the 90's now than when it started?
As far as your precious flash is concerned, the toxic dumping ground of the internet, there is no way it could ever run on a mobile device that needed to run more than an hour on a charge. If things needed to have moving pictures on mobile, it had to be HTML5 or related. I don't know about you, but for the first three or four years, the most I could get youtoob vids to play was about five to ten seconds before excruciating wait time and two second stutters made me give up in disgust.
Schmidt and google probably seemed like a good alliance against the Microsoft hegemony in the early 2000's, till they started stabbing Steve in the back. That Russian prick probably had ex an KGB'er stab Steve with one of their favourite radioactive toxins, like they did to other threats to the mother country.
It'd be a laugh if google was actually developed and funded by the soviets to data mine the planet. It would account for a lot of their behavior and tactics.

I'm not going to argue with you about the positives or negatives of google maps (other than to point out that in 2007, apple maps DID NOT EXIST so Steve Jobs had to use google maps), but who is the "Russian prick" in this equation? Eric Schmidt is American. Sergey Brin left Russia when he was six years old. Larry Page is also American.

Steve's pancreatic cancer was discovered in 2004, well before the Google/Apple wars started, AND he chose not to treat it for a long time. So Google might be a lot of things but I don't think they're responsible for Steve's cancer.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Well my point is that I DONT WANT to have with me a tablet and a smartphone. Most of the time I just need a sleek and very portable smartphone with me, like my iPhone, and when I need a tablet, I want my full size iPad, not a 6" device.

Swype keyboard ? I tried it on my wife's S4 and on my son's S3 and I found it veeeery distant from my needs. Oh please let the usual "browsing file system" argument out of this thread: I don't see a single reason to use it. Actually I don't want to know what is inside my file system, I just want it to works flawlessly.

I would like to have a file system on my iphone but I can live without it. I agree about swype. I used it on my S4 and other android phones, why because the stock keyboards were not good enough so I had to look for better alternatives. I don't care that the iphone doesn't allow me to install alternatives because the stock keyboard works perfectly fine. If it aint broke then don't fix it I say.

 

[Wiesenlooser]

I would like to have a file system on my iphone but I can live without it. I agree about swype. I used it on my S4 and other android phones, why because the stock keyboards were not good enough so I had to look for better alternatives. I don't care that the iphone doesn't allow me to install alternatives because the stock keyboard works perfectly fine. If it aint broke then don't fix it I say.

Let me guess. Your type on the english keyboard? In Other languages the keyboard is very bad.

In German it is pretty terrible and by far inferior to Android and even WP8

 

[powers74]

... don't underestimate the effect Touch ID will have in the next 3 years.

Not to mention, iBeacon.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Let me guess. Your type on the english keyboard? In Other languages the keyboard is very bad.

In German it is pretty terrible and by far inferior to Android and even WP8

Yes I do. I never knew that. You would think with all their resources and their large international customer base that Apple would improve their support for other languages.

 

[kdarling]

The thing is, half of the windbags posting about Apple doing "nothing" since 2007 couldn't explain to you what they would consider a game changer.

I recently saw a presentation by Guy Kawasaki - a former Apple employee, among other things. He was talking about the 10% improvement vs. the 10x improvement. His presentation somehow reminds me of what many of the copycat companies do vs. what Apple does.

A bit ironic that you would use him as an example.

Guy Kawasaki used to be Apple's chief evangelist. He's credited with helping to start the whole Apple fanboy cult.

Now he only uses Android devices.



(His choice. Personally, I use all types of devices.)

 

[Gudi]

There are always people that just want to diminish other people credit ...

They don't know it better and can't believe it when they hear it.

Also not to mention it Apple who make it possible on the use of GUI and mouse there won't be Microsoft.

Oh, Microsoft existed with Altair BASIC way before the advent of the GUI. But the whole Personal Computer industry wouldn't exist without the Macintosh and the Apple II for that matter. Apple invented the PC and IBM found a way to mass-produce them cheaply. In this story the IBM-PC is the Ford Model T of computer production and Apple Macintosh is Mercedes-Benz.

 

[kdarling]

But the whole Personal Computer industry wouldn't exist without the Macintosh and the Apple II for that matter.

Cult myth.

It was the TRS-80s and Commodores and Ataris that brought personal computing to the masses at first.



Later, it was the IBM PC and clones that took over the personal and office environments.

The good news is that Apple survived anyway. The world needs competition to progress quicker.

 

[63dot]

Cult myth.

It was the TRS-80s and Commodores and Ataris that brought personal computing to the masses at first.

View attachment 455847

Later, it was the IBM PC and clones that took over the personal and office environments.

The good news is that Apple survived anyway. The world needs competition to progress quicker.

That's a really good chart. I used to teach this myth in my presentations. Oops!

 

[Gudi]

It was the TRS-80s and Commodores and Ataris that brought personal computing to the masses at first. Later, it was the IBM PC and clones that took over the personal and office environments.

You are not the inventor of something, only because you sell the most of it. Hence my example with the Ford Model T. Commodores and Ataris were the first home computers, but they missed so much that is characteristic for personal computers. Then again the Macintosh still is the prototype of how every PC works today. And the iPhone and iPad are the prototypes of their respective categories, no matter who else tried something similar before. If you want, you can easily paint a chart showing that Microsoft once had a 100% market share in tablet computing.

The TRS-80 is as much the first personal computer, as Tablet-PCs are the first tablets.​

 

[fredaroony]

It was actually a computer in your pocket.

A computer in your pocket with no file level access or even the ability to attach a file while replying to an email.

Yeah....computer in your pocket....erm ok.

 

[Gudi]

A computer in your pocket with no file level access or even the ability to attach a file while replying to an email. Yeah....computer in your pocket....erm ok.

Yes, only because there is no direct file system access and process management is fully automated, mobile computing became useful for normal people. Its a feature not a bug. Earlier icons and the desktop metaphor made personal computing useful for non-programmers. But you still needed to be quiet computer-savvy and know about all this context information of what you can do with which kind of filetypes. This heavy burden on using computers has been liftet with iOS. Like with the Macintosh it is its ease of use what makes the iPhone the most important invention of our century. And for all what we know, without Apple the GUI might have rotten in Xerox PARC forever.