> The WHOLE reason the smartphone space finally took off was because Apple came in and rationalized the interaction model and implemented a robust, responsive UI.
I see this "fact" thrown about all the time by under-30s who only ever knew of the iPhone since they were teens.
The iPhone OS interface, as it first existed, faithfully aped the Palm Garnet OS, which was the latest iteration of Palm's highly successful OS going all the way back to the late 90s. Before there were smartphones there were PDAs, and while it's debatable that Apple invented the PDA with the Newton, the platform didn't become a commercial success until US Robotics released the PalmPilot and PalmPilot Professional. When Handspring successfully melded the Palm OS with cellphone hardware creating the Treo, the touch controlled, icon based, modal fullscreen app "smartphone interface" as we know it was created. Palm bought Handspring and pivoted to improving the Treo line of smartphones, culminating in the Treo 600 and 700 series.
Speaking of responsiveness, while Palm's own devices were fairly standard and could be sluggish, Sony's Clie line made Palm OS feel almost as fast and fluid as the modern iOS interface. The hardware was expensive but it was the absolute best handheld computer you could buy in the early to mid 2000s. The first time I used the original iPhone I still owned a Clie NX70V, and the Clie was less jittery than the iPhone if I had a lot of apps open on both devices.
That's not even touching on Nokia's Symbian, arguably the best selling smartphone OS in history, but Symbian never resembled Palm OS, Android, or iPhone OS until after those systems became widespread.
So no, Apple never invented anything in this space; they took what already existed, polished the hardware, correctly implemented multitouch, and applied Jobs' marketing magic. I drank the Kool-aid and bought the original iPhone soon after its release. I ended up promptly selling it and going back to my Treo to get real work done when I realized the iPhone was nothing more than a (arguably excellent) mobile web browser. It wasn't until Apple finally started allowing apps (something Palm supported from the beginning) that the "modern" smartphone revolution really began. Even then, hardware improvements were driven by Android based devices, with Apple always playing catch-up.
Do you think that both interfaces are the same simply because they are "touch controlled" and "icon based"?
Also, saying there were other worse phones before the iPhone came out does not refute the point that the reason the space "finally took off" was because of Apple.
I feel its my duty to report that after looking at that image of Palm Garnet OS it shows an app called "DiddleBug", which is apparently a note taking app.
I am certainly glad Steve Jobs applied his sinister marketing magic to whatever this is so that no one has to be inserting IntelliBoogers into their DiddleBugs on their PalmPilots just to take a note.
Yes, things like these remind me to take our Product and Marketing guys more seriously, because, left alone in a cellar, I too probably would call things DiddleBugs and IntelliBoogers.
You can of course take notes out of the box with a more informatively named program. I'm sure there are apps with weird names in the iPhone app store as well.
It was single threaded with no memory protection either, so you could write into other programs memory space and easily crash your device. :)
I still loved PalmOS. I had two Visors, a Treo, a Centro and even a Palm Pre with WebOS. HP hasn't done anything with all their Palm IP for a while .. sad to see it totally gone now.
That's still plenty to spot major differences between the stylus-based PalmOS paradigm and modern touch-based smartphone interaction. There's a drop down menu on that PalmOS home screen, and the app launcher has to be scrolled by interacting with the scrollbar on the edge of the screen (or using the hardware scroll buttons). Looking at a screenshot of one of the applications would show even bigger differences. Really, the similarities don't go much further than a tile-based launcher and a status bar at the top of the screen. The PalmOS UI had more in common with the Newton UI than iOS.
I was under impression that Apple regularly beats Android with hardware. CPU, GPU, screen, touch hardware (not sure lately for these two) and others I'm sure.
Well, like any other group there are always outliers. :-)
I've heard many strange things from folks born in 1990 and later; I've actually been told by someone with a straight face that Apple invented the MP3 player as well as the first touchscreen.
Well that [mp3] is because they don't know much about anything techology wise :) not that many 90s kids remeber midi or MD players despite they were quite popular (lots of geocities sites would have a midi music playing in the background for example.) but I get your point, it is fair to say most people can hardly remember much anything they generally don't care.
I see this "fact" thrown about all the time by under-30s who only ever knew of the iPhone since they were teens.
The iPhone OS interface, as it first existed, faithfully aped the Palm Garnet OS, which was the latest iteration of Palm's highly successful OS going all the way back to the late 90s. Before there were smartphones there were PDAs, and while it's debatable that Apple invented the PDA with the Newton, the platform didn't become a commercial success until US Robotics released the PalmPilot and PalmPilot Professional. When Handspring successfully melded the Palm OS with cellphone hardware creating the Treo, the touch controlled, icon based, modal fullscreen app "smartphone interface" as we know it was created. Palm bought Handspring and pivoted to improving the Treo line of smartphones, culminating in the Treo 600 and 700 series.
Speaking of responsiveness, while Palm's own devices were fairly standard and could be sluggish, Sony's Clie line made Palm OS feel almost as fast and fluid as the modern iOS interface. The hardware was expensive but it was the absolute best handheld computer you could buy in the early to mid 2000s. The first time I used the original iPhone I still owned a Clie NX70V, and the Clie was less jittery than the iPhone if I had a lot of apps open on both devices.
That's not even touching on Nokia's Symbian, arguably the best selling smartphone OS in history, but Symbian never resembled Palm OS, Android, or iPhone OS until after those systems became widespread.
So no, Apple never invented anything in this space; they took what already existed, polished the hardware, correctly implemented multitouch, and applied Jobs' marketing magic. I drank the Kool-aid and bought the original iPhone soon after its release. I ended up promptly selling it and going back to my Treo to get real work done when I realized the iPhone was nothing more than a (arguably excellent) mobile web browser. It wasn't until Apple finally started allowing apps (something Palm supported from the beginning) that the "modern" smartphone revolution really began. Even then, hardware improvements were driven by Android based devices, with Apple always playing catch-up.