The first iPhone how in the hell did they do it?

[ijohnbro]

I mean seriously if you think back to 2007, it's almost like Apple had access to technology that was a few years ahead. When my friend was telling me about the first iPhone when it came out in 2007 I didn't believe him. I was like "yeah right you push the screen to access everything and it's like a computer "

it was a big leap in technology, in fact I still think the first iPhone is nice device and better than any current dumbphone by far. Sure it's not as advanced as the newest iPhone 4S, but all and all technology wise it's up to par with it. To think up and bring such a product to the market is simply incredible, it's like Alien smart. I remember back when People said Steve Jobs had an Alien in his basement creating techology for Apple, I damn near believed it back then.

So what in the hell is the story, if you think about it and the timing and all how in the hell did Apple do it? Do you think it was something they been working on since like 2003 or something? pretty amazing.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Do you think it was something they been working on since like 2003 or something? pretty amazing.

Absolutely 100%. With the original iPhone they weren't dealing with any real time restraints (in relation to the release of a previous iPhone) so they had years to work on it.

 

[SurferMan]

Development of the phone actually only began in late 05'. Not that far behind it's launch date. Jobs said he had the idea around 02' to make a new kind of phone... but wasn't till 05' when they started going full steam on it to get it out.

 

[i hate phones]

touch screen technology was widely used in other types of products, ie navigation systems, PDAa, ATMs, medical devices... microsoft even had a touchscreen tablet (though not popular) . i don't believe it was the first touchscreen mobile phone either... i'm not trying to take anything away from it, but it wasn't unheard of technology. apple just refined it and made it popular.

 

[ericrwalker]

Exactly, it was the refining of Capacitive sensing touchscreen they refined. They did/are doing it better than anyone else.

touch screen technology was widely used in other types of products, ie navigation systems, ATMs, medical devices... microsoft even had a touchscreen tablet (though not popular) apple just refined it and made it popular.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

touch screen technology was widely used in other types of products, ie navigation systems, PDAa, ATMs, medical devices... microsoft even had a touchscreen tablet (though not popular) . i don't believe it was the first touchscreen mobile phone either... i'm not trying to take anything away from it, but it wasn't unheard of technology. apple just refined it and made it popular.

This too. No offence OP but you're treating it as if Jobs pulled the iPhone out of thin air, which isn't the case. The iPhone was simply the zenith of a lot of good ideas, made better.

 

[jmgregory1]

I was an early adopter of Compaq's iPaq back in the day (I think it was 10 years ago, maybe more). It was, in my opinion, a combination of part Newton and part Palm Pilot, taking on a more computer-like OS. It had handwriting recognition superior to Palm's at the time and I did use it for note taking in meetings - although the stylus was problematic and the touch screen, being plastic, suffered over it's life from severe scratches.

Apple didn't invent anything new, they simply improved upon and took things further with the first iPhone. The fact that they made it so simple to add apps and kept improving the OS, made them different than any of the PC vendors. I remember my iPaq was out of date 6 months after I got it and a year later couldn't be updated to the newer OS. It was essentially designed to be tossed. My first 07 iPhone (that I paid full price for before there were any allowances offered) would still be running had the kids not put it through the wash. My sister-in-law is still using her 07 iPhone as a phone.

Apple changed the cell phone industry - and I remember getting an email from them questioning me on my cell phone use - when they were trying to justify the opportunity to make the iPhone - I think that was back in 2006, but can't confirm as I dumped 2007 and earlier emails.

 

[ShionoyaTamaki]

I was using the "Dell Axim X51v" back in 2005-2006 before the iPhone was released. Nice device at the time but sucky windows mobile OS. The technology was there just the software wasn't optimized for it. IMO, it was the OS that Apple shook up the mobile world with.

 

[Tinmania]

I was an early adopter of Compaq's iPaq back in the day (I think it was 10 years ago, maybe more). It was, in my opinion, a combination of part Newton and part Palm Pilot, taking on a more computer-like OS.

I was an early iPaq owner as well. In fact the four mobile devices that I have liked the most are probably: Newton, Palm Pilot, iPaq Pocket PC, and iPhone.

Ironically the Newton, released during the first Apple-without-Jobs era, tried to do too much with the technology available at the time. Then came the Pilot which basically stripped away all the crap that didn't work and replaced it with a much simpler device that DID work and was portable enough to take anywhere.

But the iPhone combined touch screen technologies in a way that made the device seem that much more approachable. The high resolution (more than the norm at the time), capacitive touch, touch and multitouch gestures, bounce and rubber band effect, etc., all came together wonderfully for the first time--or at least the first time in a wildly successful product. The day I got the first iPhone I put down my Treo and its stylus and knew I would never use a device like that again.



Michael

 

[Jimbo47]

It wasn't the first touch screen device, but it wasn't far from first. Touch screens were relatively new to people then, with the exception of GPS touch screens, which didn't function all that well half the time, so it was definitely a leap forward in that aspect.

 

[urkel]

I mean seriously if you think back to 2007, it's almost like Apple had access to technology that was a few years ahead. When my friend was telling me about the first iPhone when it came out in 2007 I didn't believe him. I was like "yeah right you push the screen to access everything and it's like a computer "

You just described Windows Mobile and the Palm OS. (Two products many of us used for YEARS prior to iPhone OS)

I dont blame people for having a revisionist history when it comes to the iPhone because this truly is an industry changing device. But lets not ignore that the first iteration had A LOT to be desired and it didn't hit its stride until the App Store opened a year later. And moreso, Apple may have created an amazing product but it is an evolution of things that already existed with the difference being that Apple did it right and did it prettier.

BTW. As impressive as the iPhone was, their most ignored impact on the industry was when they dropped the price. At the time I had a flip phone that cost $299 subsidized. If not for Apple then the cost of smartphones would probably be double what we pay because cell carriers were allowed to do what they wanted since NONE of the manufacturers ever fought to bring prices down. (And this is another reason why its sad Apple didnt become a wireless carrier. We desperately need carrier reform in America to fix these terrible prices.)

 

[kdarling]

The iPhone hardware project wasn't started in earnest until the end of 2005 and the iOS port began in early 2006.

By that time there were plenty of all touch designs floating around, such as the BenQ Black Box, and Nokia Aeon concepts, the Synaptics capacitive Onyx demo phone, and others. Samsung put out this touch gesture controlled phone in Aug 2006. This Linux phone announced plans to use multitouch and pinch-zoom, months before Apple did.


So there were no real new ideas being used. Heck, when the iPhone came out, other smartphones had had 3G, GPS, Google Maps, Slingplayer, etc for a long time. However, they were all tied to ten year old UIs.

Mostly, the iPhone demonstrated what a company can do if they have no legacy devices or apps to support.

(Of course, five years later, Apple has gotten a bit trapped with what is now a legacy UI as well.)

 

[ericrwalker]

The difference is that most phones didn't and I don't think any GPS used capacitive touchscreen. They are so much more responsive.

It wasn't the first touch screen device, but it wasn't far from first. Touch screens were relatively new to people then, with the exception of GPS touch screens, which didn't function all that well half the time, so it was definitely a leap forward in that aspect.

 

[kdarling]

It wasn't the first touch screen device, but it wasn't far from first. Touch screens were relatively new to people then, with the exception of GPS touch screens, which didn't function all that well half the time, so it was definitely a leap forward in that aspect.

The iPhone wasn't even close to the being the first touch screen device, much less the first phone.

Millions of people had been using touchscreen PDAs and smartphones for many years.

The difference is that most phones didn't and I don't think any GPS used capacitive touchscreen. They are so much more responsive.

Yes, that choice helped a lot. Capacitive touch had been around a long time (I started working with it back around 1991 while developing for we-can-pay-for-anything casinos... ever used a touchscreen bingo, poker game or slot machine?), but was seen as impractical for handhelds because of not being stylus friendly.

 

[ericrwalker]

No doubt they have been around for a while, but not in phones. There was a learning curve for me having come from a Palm (WinMo) phone. Of course with a stylus, it would have been hard to introduce multitouch. Would have been interesting to have 3 stylus' to control your phone.

Yes, that choice helped a lot. Capacitive touch had been around a long time (I started working with it back around 1991 while developing for we-can-pay-for-anything casinos... ever used a touchscreen bingo, poker game or slot machine?), but was seen as impractical for handhelds because of not being stylus friendly.

 

[kdarling]

Of course with a stylus, it would have been hard to introduce multitouch. Would have been interesting to have 3 stylus' to control your phone.

Of course, nobody actually needed a stylus to register a button press on the old resistive touchscreens.

It was more like we needed a pointy stylus (or fingernail) because so much info was usually packed onto the screen with teeny tiny hit points

 

[Phil A.]

The first capacitive touch screen phone was, I believe, the LG Prada which was announced in 2006 but I don't think it was multi-touch
Before that, there were loads of resistive touch screen phones going back as the early 2000's and the first touch screen cell phone was probably the IBM Simon in 1993

The iPhone wasn't a particularly big leap forward technically (No 3G, no MMS, no front camera; all of which were common on other phones of the time).

What it was was a massive leap forward in usability and the true innovation was multi-touch and doing away with the stylus.

The iPhone defined the form factor for smart phones from that point forward and whilst there had been the odd phone without a keyboard (e.g. the SE P800 and successors which could run without a keyboard) it wasn't that common before the iPhone

 

[Ronnie0]

really it wasn't the technology they used, it was how they presented every day functionality. Phone interfaces were always crammed full of menus, options and long drawn out procedures for making even the simplest of actions.

Apple really just focused on core phone functionality, packaged it all up and made it shine!

 

[Thetonyk123]

The iPhone hardware project wasn't started in earnest until the end of 2005 and the iOS port began in early 2006.

By that time there were plenty of all touch designs floating around, such as the BenQ Black Box, and Nokia Aeon concepts, the Synaptics capacitive Onyx demo phone, and others. Samsung put out this touch gesture controlled phone in Aug 2006. This Linux phone announced plans to use multitouch and pinch-zoom, months before Apple did.
View attachment 313288

So there were no real new ideas being used. Heck, when the iPhone came out, other smartphones had had 3G, GPS, Google Maps, Slingplayer, etc for a long time. However, they were all tied to ten year old UIs.

Mostly, the iPhone demonstrated what a company can do if they have no legacy devices or apps to support.

(Of course, five years later, Apple has gotten a bit trapped with what is now a legacy UI as well.)

Well those phones looked pretty ugly

 

[kdarling]

What it was was a massive leap forward in usability and the true innovation was multi-touch and doing away with the stylus.

Yes, but more than a multitouch or even a capacitive screen, it was the fact that it had a UI with elements designed for finger use.

Ironically, the stylus is making a minor comeback now, because in real life, humans do use writing utensils in addition to finger painting and poking

The iPhone defined the form factor for smart phones from that point forward and whilst there had been the odd phone without a keyboard (e.g. the SE P800 and successors which could run without a keyboard) it wasn't that common before the iPhone

It certainly made the minimal front panel popular.

However, there were dozens if not hundreds of touchscreen phones without keyboards before it. (Example list here.) In 2005-6, it was the few with physical keyboards that were more expensive and seen as top-of-the-line devices.

 

[b166er]

touch screens have been around forever. But I think we can all agree that Apple truly did make them not suck. I used to be very opposed to touch controls on anything because they are always so terrible. The iPhone changed me though. To be honest I think most GPS and other smartphones are still struggling to get the tech right, although there are some newer Android phones out there that have no issues in this area.

 

[identity]

I mean seriously if you think back to 2007, it's almost like Apple had access to technology that was a few years ahead. When my friend was telling me about the first iPhone when it came out in 2007 I didn't believe him. I was like "yeah right you push the screen to access everything and it's like a computer "

it was a big leap in technology, in fact I still think the first iPhone is nice device and better than any current dumbphone by far. Sure it's not as advanced as the newest iPhone 4S, but all and all technology wise it's up to par with it. To think up and bring such a product to the market is simply incredible, it's like Alien smart. I remember back when People said Steve Jobs had an Alien in his basement creating techology for Apple, I damn near believed it back then.

So what in the hell is the story, if you think about it and the timing and all how in the hell did Apple do it? Do you think it was something they been working on since like 2003 or something? pretty amazing.

wow what a troll. talk about ignorant.

 

[Rocko1]

Buy and read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and your questions will be answered.

 

[ijohnbro]

This too. No offence OP but you're treating it as if Jobs pulled the iPhone out of thin air, which isn't the case. The iPhone was simply the zenith of a lot of good ideas, made better.

maybe

 

[Rocko1]

The iPhone hardware project wasn't started in earnest until the end of 2005 and the iOS port began in early 2006.

By that time there were plenty of all touch designs floating around, such as the BenQ Black Box, and Nokia Aeon concepts, the Synaptics capacitive Onyx demo phone, and others. Samsung put out this touch gesture controlled phone in Aug 2006. This Linux phone announced plans to use multitouch and pinch-zoom, months before Apple did.
View attachment 313288



So there were no real new ideas being used. Heck, when the iPhone came out, other smartphones had had 3G, GPS, Google Maps, Slingplayer, etc for a long time. However, they were all tied to ten year old UIs.

Mostly, the iPhone demonstrated what a company can do if they have no legacy devices or apps to support.

(Of course, five years later, Apple has gotten a bit trapped with what is now a legacy UI as well.)

Comparing those phones to the iPhone is like comparing the Rio MP3 player to the iPod. Yes, they play mp3's, but that's about the only similarity. The design and revisions to perfect the device make it leaps and bounds above any product at the time. It's like saying the first wagon wheel is no big deal becuase cave men had already carved wheels out of stone.