Multitouch and touchscreens really are all the rage these days, especially in mobile devices. Apple’s iPhone set the bar, and now it’s up to the rest to either catch up to Apple, or outdo them. Google is trying just that with its Android mobile phone operating system, and it has demoed the capabilities of its new mobile phone operating system.Where earlier Android devices sported a rather clunky, unfinished graphical user interface, the latest Android device from Google appears like a production quality product, according to AndroidCommunity.com. The user interface has some really interesting touches, with most importantly, the unlock screen. Instead of using a drag switch like the iPhone, it shows nine dots, and your password is basically a game of connect-the-dots, and the patterns can be made as simple or as complicated as you want. That’s a fairly clever way of securing your device, and fits very well into the paradigm of the touch-driven interface.
Another nice touch is the status bar atop the screen. It shows the time, any notifications, appointments, you name it. You can drag the status bar downwards to reveal a shelf which contains large buttons that give you access to the actual notifications and appointments. I’m sure fans of the Amiga have flashbacks to their dragable desktops.
The device also supports multiple desktops. You can swipe to reveal another desktop, which you can fill with desk accessories (not widgets) or shortcuts to contacts, programs, or web bookmarks. This looks like a drop-dead-obvious method of extending screen real estate without having to resort to tedious scrollbars – a UI element that really doesn’t work very well on small screens and touch screens.
The Google Maps implementation also has a very interesting feature:
All in all, it seems as if the iPhone will be getting some serious competition, which can only be seen as a good thing – especially seeing Android is not tied to one vendor, and thusly, not tied to a single carrier or device.
I need one of those
I am holding on my old cellphone waiting for some of those to come out… whoever will introduce one android based one will get me sign up.
Your Thusness, thou hast thusly written, yet in the sense of thus. I shall pardon thee, for like myself, thy mother tongue is Albion’s not.
plusplus
Funniest post I’ve read since aught 5 ( http://www.osnews.com/permalink?71688 ).
heheh.. an Anonymous coward, but that wasn’t me.
I typed my pedantic little comment because it reminded me of a “conflict” I had with a professor a while ago. I had written an article (on something extremely interesting, of course) in English and he said (himself Dutch) I should use “Firstly.. secondly.. thirdly..” instead of “First.. second.. third..” which I had written.
Now I happen to really hate the -ly version of these and told him it was just a matter of taste. He was not so good at that kind of dispute, also not so good at just googling it, and refused to let go of his high school creed that it has to be -ly.
I didn’t change that part of the text and it did
negatively influence his judgment.
I’d say you were in the right from a grammatical standpoint too – IMHO, the “ly” suffix is for adverbs, not adjectives.
Amusingly enough it’s usually the opposite transgression that I rant about (people who omit the “ly” suffix from adverbs – an action is performed quickLY, not “quick,” damnit).
I guess “linguaphilia” and mild OCD aren’t such a great combination after all
(every time I post a reply, I have to restrain the urge to go on a tirade about how “Italic” is not a verb).
Is that coverage for AT&T phones in my area is atrocious. That’s why I haven’t bought an iPhone.
I would certainly be considering a new “smartphone” (although, I really don’t like that catch-all term), as long as my local provider with the best coverage could be easily tacked onto the system.
My contract is coming up soon with my current phone, which is rapidly declining in usability, so I am definitely going to be in the market for something grand within the next few months.
Edited 2008-05-29 20:16 UTC
I was on the fence about geting an iPhone, given that I’ve only owned basic call & text cellphones. Turns out that my mobile carrier, Globe, has first dibs in the Philippines (may or may not be exclusive), almost definitely the 3G version.
Its kind of funny how BlackBerry and Microsoft have been around in this market forever, and how far they have been left behind by Google and Apple. And by funny I mean sad.
So who is Google partnering with? Who’s actually shipping Android on an actual phone?
My two cents: It isn’t in any carrier’s interest to create a truly open platform that anybody can leverage. That’s why the mobile phone market has evolved the way it has, with carriers having a chokehold on all services. They want to be the ones to sell you the ringtones, carry the messaging traffic, sell you the applications, etc. If applications can use the data pipe to bypass the carrier’s SMS messaging stack, for example, it means a huge loss of revenue for the carrier; instead, the carrier is relegated to charging for data bandwidth, which is a lower-tier service and one in which traditional wired ISPs make the bulk of their money (in other words, not as desirable). Consequently, based on the economics of the situation, I have to believe that partnerships between Google and carriers will be difficult to come by. Sure, they may use Android as a platform–but will they open it up completely? Call me skeptical. It just isn’t in their interest to do so.
Don’t get me wrong. I HOPE that most phones eventually use an open platform. It’s just that I’m not so deluded as to think that carriers will forego economic realities in favor of handing all of us the keys to their kingdom. They are in business to make money, after all, and they’re probably not going to do anything which jeopardizes their revenue stream. That said, there may be other revenue opportunities (eg. advertising, search, etc) which could replace existing opportunities; but, put yourself in their shoes: why would you RISK it, when you have guaranteed revenue from SMS, etc?
Edited 2008-05-29 22:00 UTC
HTC and they have really nice powerfull hardware.
Which carrier is selling the phone?
T-Mobile for example.
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html
here are the members of the open handset alliance. t-mobile and sprint.. LG, HTC, Motorola.. plus a bunch more. it seems that android/google have some powerful players ready to support this.
Sadly, the only US carriers in the alliance are Sprint and T-Mobile. Neither really have great coverage, hence they are losing market share, and forced into competing in novel ways (like the open handset).
NTT DoCoMo is huge in Japan, IIRC.
It’s really the US that gets the shaft as far as neat features, etc (as always). To bad (for my cellphone) that’s where I live and work.
But the sun & the beach are nice. And the pay, for now. I ‘ll trade those for a neat cellphone any day.
Maybe once I learn Japanese… Supposedly hard to get accepted as a non-japanese in Japan. But I’m a computer geek. I’m used to not being accepted anyways. As long as I get paid…
(but no, I’m not really switching countries to switch carriers..). Maybe for effective mass transportation.
Don’t complain yet. The US most certainly gets the shaft on features and cost. Multiply that by two, or three, and you’ll see the shaft Australia gets.
Not to mention Canada. While one of the two major wireless carriers here (Rogers) is an AT&T partner, the iPhone is still not available “up north” – and many suspect that’s because of the ridiculous rates that both Rogers and Telus charge for data transfer (you can get better rates in nearly all of Europe and Asia, and much of Africa & the Mid-East).
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2117/135/
Last time I personally checked, the “best” data transfer plan that Rogers offered was 100MB/month for $120/month.
From seeing all those videos of the fifty page iPhone bills from AT&T, the iPhone would gobble up a hundred megabytes in a week, never mind a month.
Oh yes. A neighbour of mine spends about half of the year in the US and bought an iPhone while he was done there. For “fun,” he calculated what the iPhone would be costing him if he used it in Canada (based on his typical usage and data transfer rates up here): it came to around $600-700 per month.
Needless to say, he disables the “phone” part of his iPhone whenever he’s back in Canada.
I have Sprint and it blows any other carrier I have ever used away. And their internet access is fast which will help on such a device.
Customer service is horrible though I’ll give you that.
Personally, I’m putting a lot of hope in Verizons ‘Any apps, any device’ initiative (official Verizon statement: http://news.vzw.com/news/2007/11/pr2007-11-27.html ). I don’t know why they did it (I think I read it was pressure from Google, maybe they wouldn’t let them use Android otherwise? Doesn’t make much sense since it’s open source) but I’m hoping that they’ll stick to the spirit of that agreement. Sprint uses a CDMA network so there should already be CDMA Android phones and I would buy one in a heartbeat if I could use it with Verizon.
I recently watched all the available video footage from the Linux Foundation’s April 2008 collaboration summit. It was all pretty cool. HP, Intel, Dell, kernel devs, and many others all there to come up with ways to help each other… until it came to the phone panel session. The representatives of the (many) phone initiatives sat around and took pot shots at the others, claiming theirs was the best and that the others were crap. I don’t think a one of them actually had a phone on the market.
Eventually a couple of them *will* have products built on them, and hopefully the others will fade into obscurity. The phone market smells too much like the Unix wars to me. Everyone talking about being “open”, but no real cooperation is apparent. That session did not even seem like it was part of the same summit as the others.
Edited 2008-05-30 02:53 UTC
“””So who is Google partnering with?
Who’s actually shipping Android on an actual phone?”””
NOBODY is shipping Android because it is not finished yet.
As for who’s Google partnering with, well, just google for it, and you’ll find plenty of information online. OK, I’ll save you the effort: As for operators, there’s China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Telefónica, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, Sprint and KDDI… How about that? Very few of the largest are missing, and these add up to quite a large proportion of the worldwide mobile market. As for cellphone makers, there is Samsung, Motorola, LG and HTC; not bad, really, not bad at all.
Even bearing in mind their openness, think that the iPhone may be even worse for the operators: it is Apple inside and out, and there’s not much room for operator identity integration. There are also leonine conditions imposed by Apple on what may be done and not done with the phone, and they pass around the hat to gather a sizeable proportion of the earnings.
Unfortunately for Android Verizon and AT&T have majority market share. Verizon replaces the OS/UI on every single phone they sell. So does AT&T Cingular with customized versions. I have a Sony Ericsson that was bought after market with the standard OS/UI. CIngular’s version had features disabled and was unstable. So handset manufacturers can put Android on a phone but carriers don’t have to release them with the same version or OS.
Operators all over the world are fighting to get iPhone exclusivity. I would think that means they see it as a competitive edge in their local markets.
Sounds like the mentality that SCO had, right before they went bankrupt.
But, I agree with you. My point is, they may go kicking and screaming, but eventually they will have to adjust to a new business model.
SCO never went bankrupt. They sold their OS division, changed their name to Tarrantella, Inc., worked hard on their remote desktop product, and IIRC Sun bought them for a pretty penny and everyone lived happily ever after. SCO was a good company.
I think you may have them confused with The SCO Group, AKA Caldera. Different company.
You probably already knew that, but I think it worth a reminder from time to time. SCO carried the Unix on x86 banner long before Linux and the *BSDs were born, and gracefully left the party when they recognized they were no longer needed.
Edit: There was a brief period in which they made fun of Linux, but their president later actually apologized for that, shortly before they rode off into the sunset. It’s really too bad what has happened to their name.
Edited 2008-05-30 15:29 UTC
The UI changed again from what the latest SDK offers.
It looks really nice, though. HTC should finally announce details about their Android phone.
Multi-touch has been around since 1982, prior to Apple’s Lisa and Apple’s Mac:
http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
So, how is it that the Iphone has set the bar? What new multi-touch innovation did the Iphone introduce, that others might strive to surpass?
Apple set the bar by bringing this tech to the mass market.
MS’s surface is too expensive (and limited) for most people and just about everyone else was researching this or not marketing it in a way to generate much publicity.
It took the iPhone to bring multi touch within the grasp of the general populous.
The iPhone included all the usual suspects, photos you could pinch, google maps and so on, and also allowed you to browse the internet with relative easy.
Apple didn’t invent this nor did they add a great deal to it, what they did do is see a market for it and integrate it well into a product.
Somehow, I’m having a hard time reconciling those two statements. The iPhone is over $500 (US). Sorry, but only the well-heeled are plunking down that much money for the phone, not the “general populous”.
Reconcile what exactly? The iPhone costs $399 and $499. Where did you get the over $500 from. In comparison, the MS Surface kiosk costs $20,000 and is impractical as a general purpose device especially a mobile phone.
Apple has sold 7-8 million iPhones to date. There sure are a lot of well-heeled people.
Not again. US is not the “world”, just like US prices are prices that you pay in the US.
In places like India for instance people have no problems spending $800 on Sony Ericssion P990s. It isn’t uncommon to see people spend $400-$600 on phones.
The original poster used US $s so I assumed he was in the US. Given the dump the US $ has taken price conversions would make the iPhone in Euro more expensive than $500 in US $ terms.
Apple sells more phones in the US than are activated here which means people have been buying them here and jail breaking them to work outside the US. I have a south american friend that mentioned it is all the rage there.
Edited 2008-05-30 15:41 UTC
The depends on if you are looking at the world as a whole or the part of the world where the iPhone has launched. $500 is something the general populous in every country where the iPhone has launched can afford. Many may chose not to buy for any number of reasons, but there are only a very few people in those parts of the world who cannot raise $500 if it was really important to them. I’ll admit that this won’t stay universally true as the iPhone starts launching in more and poorer countries, but I think my point still stands.
So the iPhone does certainly bring it within the grasp of the general populous, it’s now up to the populous to decide if they want to grasp it or not.
I won’t be getting an iPhone because I think it costs more than I want to spend, not because I can’t afford one.
So, Apple is merely good at marketing and publicity. The products aren’t actually innovative.
If anything, it took the glow from the Apple reality distortion field. If you go to the link in my earlier post, you will see that several companies offered multi-touch devices for sale many years before the Iphone. It was just a matter of time before one of these companies would finally succeed. Apple has an advantage in that its fan base accepts almost everything that the company offers, good or bad.
Lots of phones/PDA-phones offer these features with excellent usability. The Iphone does not have the best usability compared to a lot of smart phones.
The Simon (1992) was “well-integrated” as the first completely touch-screen cellphone that was mass marketed. How was Apple unique in the way it marketed the Iphone and in the way it integrated multi-touch into the already well-established touch-screen phone?
Oh Geez, get over yourself. You could say the same about the wimp interface. It was around long before Apple brought it to the masses, but Apple is still around, where are the other guys.
Let’s avoid the personal attacks and stick to the facts.
Actually, the WIMP interface was “brought” to the masses long before the Mac, i.e. the Xerox Star, the Three Rivers Perq and Visi-On. Apple was just the first company to market with Super-Bowl ads, etc., so they were much more successful.
Where are the other guys? That question has no bearing on the quality and innovation of a product. One could ask the same question of the many excellent software companies forced out of business by Microsoft. Indeed, Apple would probably be history if it weren’t for a loan from Microsoft.
Most of those products failed because they didn’t take out Super Bowl Ads???!! That’s a very naive view to say the least.
Oh please! Another oversimplified view of reality. Sure the only reason Apple is successful today is because Microsoft loaned it money, Seriously!
Edited 2008-05-30 04:10 UTC
“…Super-Bowl ads, etc.” — Not just the Super-Bowl ads, but the huge marketing/advertising push that would include Super-Bowl ads.
The other companies had almost the same GUI years earlier (some arguably superior than the Mac), but they put a relatively minuscule amount of money and effort into marketing/advertising.
It is sort of naive for one to miss the “etc.” qualifier.
Without the Microsoft $150 million and the colaboration with Microsoft, Apple might not exist today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple#The_Microsoft_Deal
Edited 2008-05-30 05:06 UTC
Wrong. My statement was meant in shock at the very simple view that a superbowl ad or marketing would make a product successful.
Got any data on that. The Xerox Star failed because it was expensive and didn’t perform well. Also Xerox was brain dead enough to try and sell it as a package with a print server and Laser printer and in sets of 2 and 3.
Apple’s Lisa also failed around the same time with the same magic Apple marketing. How do you explain that?
The naivety here comes from thinking that the only way for a product to succeed is marketing. Try starting a company with that philosophy and see how that works out.
Keyword being “might”. Apple may have failed even with that money if it weren’t for its product line and new digital media hub strategy that Jobs brought back to the company along with the MS deal. In fact, until 2004 or so people were still predicting the death of Apple. The 1997 infusion from Microsoft didn’t magically make Apple a $164 billion market cap company. Apple was trading at $7 in 2003, 6 years after the $150 mil deal. A company the size of Apple can burn through that cash in less than an year.
Your ideas and arguments are really ill conceived. I think I am done with this off topic discussion. Cheers.
Edited 2008-05-30 05:42 UTC
Very well. So you weren’t referring to just a Super-Bowl ad.
Why then does Apple put all that money and effort into advertising and marketing? Advertsing can make or break a product, company, political candidate, etc., and you are a naive Apple fanboy if you believe otherwise. My guess is that you have been victimized by the very advertising/marketing in question.
On what? — on the other companies’ GUIs or on their marketing advertising budgets?
The data on prior GUIs is well documented on the web. Here is a good site: http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html
In regards to advertising/marketing budget, if you know anything about advertising, it is obvious that Apple put a lot of money into ads. Super-Bowl commercials don’t come cheap. The only computer company that probably surpassed Apple was IBM with the “Charlie Chaplin” campaign.
The Xerox Alto was expensive. How do you figure the same with the Star? Where did you hear that the performance was inferior?
Note that the Xerox Star page on Digibarn states, “The Xerox 8010 (aka “Star”) was introduced in 1981. It changed the way office workers used computers by presenting a desktop interface, and a mouse — now standard on most office computers.”: http://www.digibarn.com/friends/curbow/star/index.html
If “it changed the way office workers used computers,” Xerox must have had been able to move a few units, and it didn’t exactly fail.
Again, how do you know this information about the Star? And thank you for reinforcing my point on the importance of marketing.
Lack of marketing/advertising, price and an internal decision not to push the Lisa.
Certainly, marketing is not the only way for a product to succeed. Many products succeed on their own.
However, many products (such as most items made by apple) succeed primarily due to marketing and advertising. It has already been established that Apple’s products are not particularly innovative nor special — it is the marketing/advertising that makes them sell.
When Steve Jobs announced the Microsoft investment, he prefaced the announcement with, “If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here.”
So, Apple needed the help of Microsoft to be healthy, prosper and move forward, according to “Fearless Leader.”
I suppose you are correct — it is foolish to think that marketing and advertising have any effect on the success of a product or company.
Adios.
Every company advertises. Period. Name one with a successful product that doesn’t.
Marketing budgets.
So Xerox never advertises its products?
Again learn to use a search engine.
You are either incredibly naive or still in college and have no real world product development experience. A product isn’t successful if some one says it is innovative or a first. A product is successful if it makes money and gains market share.
First learn the difference between sales and marketing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star
“The Xerox Star was not originally meant to be a stand-alone computer, but to be part of an integrated Xerox “personal office system” that also connected to other workstations and network services via Ethernet. Although a single unit sold for $16,000, a typical office would have to purchase at least 2 or 3 machines along with a file server and a print server. Dropping $50,000 to $100,000 for a complete installation was not an easy sell.
….elided…..
In the end the Star’s unsatisfactory commercial reception probably came down to price, performance in demonstrations and weakness of sales channels. Even Apple’s Lisa, inspired by the Star and introduced 2 years later, was a market failure, for many of the same reasons as the Star. To give credit to Xerox, they did try many things in an attempt to jumpstart sales.
”
Which is it Apple markets its products or not? Pick one.
Really who established that? You? Please stop joking.
He meant trying to compete with them and work with them instead.
No you are foolish to think that products as successful as Apple’s are only so because of marketing.
Microsoft marketed the hell out of Vista and look where that ended up.
Edited 2008-05-30 08:52 UTC
Sure. There are countless examples: the weed eater; the pet rock (good marketing, almost no advertising); clackers (a now banned toy from the late 1960s); etc.
Actually, I can’t recall any advertsing for MSDOS early on (right after it permeated the computer world).
So, not so on your assertion that “every company advertises.”
Period.
Certainly not as much as they used to. But do you recall any super-Bowl ads for the Xerox Star?
You mean use a search engine to provide supporting links like I have done consistently and you have neglected to do?
So, Microsoft’s products are dramatically more successfull and superior to Apple’s products, because the Microsoft profit and market share dwarfs that of Apple?
I don’t have to — Apple already did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa#Business_blunder
Note the second sentence in the second paragraph: “The release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, which received far better marketing, was the most significant factor in the Lisa’s demise.”
No joke. It was established in this very thread: http://osnews.com/thread?316129
Note the line, “Apple didn’t invent this nor did they add a great deal to it…”
In addition, I have asked you repeatedly to list Apple GUI innovations. You can’t, because there aren’t more than two or three.
Yeah, right.
Success is a subjective accomplishment. Apple products are “successful” mostly because of marketing, advertising and image. There is nothing especially innovative about Apple products nor do Apple products have superior quality.
Microsoft has terrible marketing and a bad image, so it’s not surprising that they had problems selling Vista.
Oh wait the MS in MSDOS stands for Microsoft. Microsoft is the company. Oddly enough there is a Windows Server 2008 advert on the right sider bar on this very webpage. Ergo Microsoft advertises thus proving my statement.
Grow a brain. Seriously its like I am talking to a 10 year old.
Wait Xerox star failed because Xerox didn’t advertise it enough compared to Apple’s macintosh but now you are saying they used to advertise more in the past. You need help.
You have posted 1 link twice. I have provided more than enough data with my claims.
Apple has been consistently gaining market share and Vista is failing.
You claimed Apple’s marketing makes their products succeed. Lisa by that flawed rationale should have succeeded. Vista should also have succeeded because microsoft marketed the hell out of it. Your claim that the iPhone sells because of marketing is flawed. You have proven nothing.
Please cut the crap. This thread and some anonymous comment doesn’t establish crap in this world.
Apple gets innovators of the year award constantly.
I don’t list them because I don’t have to prove anything to you. I honestly don’t care about what you think of Apple. I do care that you are a troll.
Right.
That’s like your useless opinion, dude.
More bull. Zune failed and it was marketed heavily.
I’ll try to make this simple so that even you can understand. MSDOS stands for Microsoft Disk Operating System. MSDOS and Windows Sever 2008 are from completely different computer eras, you dunce.
You must have some mental disease in which you cannot discern different eras in time.
Xerox sold photocopiers before computers. (Am I going too fast?). Xerox spent a lot of money on an ad campaign for their photocopiers, that featured a monk.
Now here is the part that might be difficult for you to grasp: in a later time, they released the Star and spent less money on advertising.
Understand???
When you are counting, it helps to remove your fingers from your nostrils.
You really can’t discern between different situations and times, can you?
And you also seem to have severe reading comprehension problems. What do you not understand about this sentenced from the reference that I linked?: “The release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, which received far better marketing, was the most significant factor in the Lisa’s demise.”
Congratulations on your award: “Fisher-Price Innovator Of The Year.”
No. You don’t list them, because you can’t.
As usual, your response makes perfect sense.
Your opinion but most people disagree.
Where are all those devices and who used them? How many did they sell? How good were those devices?
Name one that my 7 year old nephew could use or would want to use.
A lot of products have been touch screen before the iPhone. PDAs, treos, Apple Newton etc. All of them were a pain to use without a stylus. Not really touch if you need a pointed plastic piece to really use.
Edited 2008-05-30 03:50 UTC
No one seems to be able to create a list of Apple GUI innovations that is more than about four items.
Where are all the Apple Newtons? Who used them? How many did they sell?
Do such questions matter to innovation? Who is more important — the inventor or the salesman? I say the inventor, because a product can sell itself without a salesman, but a product cannot exist without an inventor.
If you merely doubt the existence of these products, go here: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
An important question that is tough to answer with complete objectivity.
It looks like a 7-year-old might enjoy using some of the Multi-touch interfaces that appeared from 1994 to 1997. However, I am not sure how important it is for most of these products to be usable and to be enjoyed by 7-year-olds.
The Simon (1992) didn’t need a stylus: http://cdecas.free.fr/computers/pocket/simon.php
Most of the multi-touch items in the first link above did not require a stylus.
No one? How many people have you asked?
Surely you can look that up on a thing called a search engine.
Really! One can easily say that Apple innovated the Multi-touch interface on a mobile phone.
There is a huge difference between inventing something and making it commercially viable. Unlike you ignorantly posit it has nothing to do with marketing.
Apple’s Lisa and Newton failed with the same marketing.
I did and I don’t see a mobile multi-touch device unit till 2006-2007. It is safe to assume that Synaptics and Apple were working in parallel so you can safely say that Apple innovated the iPhone.
You talked about usability of the iPhone. If a seven year old can use it I can say it is fairly useable. I write kernel/FW code for a living and have used most user interfaces available. I find Blackberries, Treos and Windows Mobile interfaces unintuitive and cumbersome.
Let’s get this straight. I was talking about portable devices. Using a projector and camera in a PDA/Mobile phone seems stupid.
The Simon was overpriced, huge and impractical and therefore failed miserably. In todays dollars it would cost $1376.
Actually Apple and Synaptics have been working together. Apple used Synaptics for the scroll wheels on the iPods.
I don’t see you making a list. I challenge you to see if you can make a list of more than four GUI items that originated from Apple.
You could say that, but it wouldn’t be true if you said that Apple was the first to develop a multi-touch cell phone. That honor goes to Synaptics. They did it without Apple, prior to the Iphone.
Not exactly. It depends on whether or not one includes development in the definition of “inventing.”
Regardless of one’s definition, marketing doesn’t really have anything to do with inventing nor innovation. It is possible that some marketing ape could contribute an actual innovation, but it rarely happens. Usually, the most that a marketing chimp will do to affect the product is maybe try to influence the style. “Design by committee” is often terrible.
No. The Onyx was developed without Apple, prior to the Iphone.
If one writes kernel code and knows little of usability, one might make such a conclusion.
However, usability is much more complex than such an oversimplified notion. You are referring only to the usability aspect of comprehension (intuitiveness), which is complicated in itself. Usability relies on many more factors that are interelated: speed, power, security/safety, physical ergonomics, technical resolution/clarity, graphic design, mapping/modeling etc.
Comprehension is not the “end-all.” For example, the Sugar interface is probably great for a 7-year-old, but hideous for a businessman, “power user.”
Furthermore, almost always, someone adept with a tiling window manager moves much faster within/between applications than someone using just a single-button, mouse-based GUI.
Whether the Simon was huge and/or impractical is debatable, given the relative size of cell phones in those early days.
Nevertheless, the Simon was the first, portable, fully-touch-screen cell phone. And it came out in 1992 — 15 years before the Iphone.
Edited 2008-05-30 08:21 UTC
Making a statement is not a challenge.
Where can you buy a Synpatics phone? Which carrier supports it? What are the specs? Is it GSM or CDMA?
It is vaporware. A concept to show off a part they want to sell to companies that make the cell phones.
Eh?
What are you rambling about?
Onyx is not a real product it can’t even make a phone call it is a concept to show case a touch sensing technology. It never passed FCC certification. It can’t be sold. Ergo it is not a phone. So the iPhone is the first Multi-Touch phone. Period. End of Story.
I’ll take this real slow. A 7 year old can use it and technically savvy person can use it. My mom ca use it. It is infinitely more useable than most smart phones.
Aparently it is another concept you can’t really grasp. Everything you listed the iPhone does extremely well and better than most smartphones.
According to you. Many businesses are waiting for the 2.0 feature set. I know of many “power users” that are pestering thier IT departments to support the iPhone.
Where did that come from there is no logical flow to your comment?
I work very fast on any UI. CLI, GUI you name it.
The newton was out then. The iPhone is multi-touch and works unlike the Simon that was ridiculously expensive with not real infrastructure so fairly useless. The discussion here is about the first multi-touch phone and it is the iPhone.
I get it you don’t like Apple or thier products. Just because you don’t like some thing doesn’t make it any less innovative.
Edited 2008-05-30 09:08 UTC
The reason why you have not made a list is because you can’t do it. Really, there are only one or two computer GUI innovations originated by Apple, including everything that is in multi-touch behavior of the Iphone.
Nevertheless, Synaptics developed the multi-touch cell phone prior to Apple. And the “concept” that you mentioned they wanted to sell was multi-touch. Looks like they “sold” it to Apple, although it has been obvious for many years to incorporate multi-touch on the many touch-screen phones that preceded the Iphone.
You gotta keep up with the conversation. I am not going to reduce the pace because you are too slow to understand something obvious.
Again, you are merely saying that the Iphone is “comprehensible.” Most cell phones these days are thoroughly comprehensible. To an Apple fanboy with an oversimplified understanding of usability, this qualifies as “superior.”
However, a multi-touch cell phone has several built-in usability disadvantages: no tactile feed-back — always have to be looking at screen to operate, further hindered by fingers not being transparent, blind people are out of luck; usually requires two hands to operate;
lack of visual clarity/feedback in bright sunlight and with smudges; etc.
Please refer to the above paragraph about built in disadvantages of a multi-touch cell phone.
So, you equate the Iphone interface with the “Fisher-Price” Sugar interface.
A tiling window manager has low initial comprehension but great eventual speed. Single-button-mouse based GUIs have greater initial comprehension, but lower eventual speed.
Please keep up.
Good for you.
The Simon worked. It’s infrastructure was IBM and BellSouth — both very real and huge corporations with a lot of original, deployed technology. Just because there were fewer cell towers doesn’t detract from the fact that the Simon preceded the Iphone by 15 years as the first fully touch-screen phone.
There were also many other fully touch-screen phones that preceded the Iphone. It appears that Apple emulated the design of some of this prior art, for instance, the award-winning LG Prada: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxUDNOyjZIU
In regards to the Newton (1993), the Simon (1992) preceded it by one year, and the first touch-screen PDA was the Sony PTC-300 (1991): http://www.sony.net/Fun/design/history/product/1990/ptc-300.html
The Iphone was not the first multi-touch phone invented. By the time the Iphone was developed by Apple, multi-touch phones were obvious — that is why Apple doesn’t have a patent on a multi-touch cell phone.
If Apple had invented the multi-touch cell phone, you can bet your life that they would have tried to claim the innovation in a patent. They didn’t.
No. You don’t get it. I dislike the blind adoration of brainless Apple/Jobs fanboys, and the resulting distortion of facts/history.
I don’t have time to indulge your ignorant claim that Apple isn’t an innovative company.
Other companies make multi-touch screens and the screen on the iPhone is not from Synaptics. Balda makes the screen on the iPhone. Apple has filed a patent for the Multi-Touch screen.
Sorry vaporware doesn’t make a product. iPhone is the first Cell phone to use a multi-touch screen.
Duh! The conversation never went in any direction close to that. The problem is not that you are fast it is that your arguments are discombobulated.
The iPhone has won independent usability studies compared to other smartphones. There really is no point debating your mis-informed opinion.
A fixed keyboard display has even more. The UI has to be limited to fit the buttons. When would you ever need to use a phone without looking at the screen? Don’t tell me while driving.
The iPhone works fine single handed, I do it all the time. It looks like you have never used it. The usability in direct sunlight has nothing to do with touch technology. The screen on the iPhone is prefectly visible in direct sunlight. Smudges not a problem, doesn’t impair usablity one bit. Since it is glass and doesn’t scratch you can wipe it with anything.
Grasping at straws, are we?
Already dismantled.
No I equate the iPhone interface to the iPhone interface. Duh!
Last I checked “Fisher-Price” didn’t make smart phones.
The iPhone is 3rd in the world smartphone market and it hasn’t even been out 1 year.
http://iphone.macworld.com/2008/02/apple_takes_the_bronze_for_wor.p…
28% US market share. I guess the world disagrees with you. Business users have no problem with the interface. I would expect the marketshare numbers to increase after this June with the 2.0 software and IT departments supporting it.
Why are you bringing this up in a discussion about a phone?
The Simon failed, miserably. Once again touch screens have been on phones before the iPhone. Only a fool would debate that. The iPhone changed the game for touch screen phones.
Wheels had been on carts before the first internal combustion car was released/invented. The car changed the shape of transportation.
You have got to be kidding.
The Newton is a PDA. Products are not designed and release in months it takes years of R&D. So apple was working on the iPhone and newton along with their competitors in parallel. They didn’t go. Oh look IBM released a touch screen phone let’s make and release a touch screen PDA a few months later.
How old are you? Do you understand product development life cycles?
Bullshit. There were 0 multi-touch phones in the market when the iPhone was launched.
Sure. Genius! they have.http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77219819 End of Story!
The only person distorting facts and history is you. There was no Multi-touch mobile phone before the iPhone. Apple is an innovative company. No matter what you claim apple didn’t copy LG. the products were revealed 1 month apart. How could Apple possibly have designed and developed a product in that time.
Edited 2008-05-30 19:45 UTC
This is an entertaining thread.
I have no knowledge of phones, my cellphone is five years old, and I’m not directly an Apple fan (having one mac though), but I wonder why some people get so.. angry at a product like the iPhone?
Only good reason I can think of is it encourages greed and materialism or something.
I mean, don’t tell me the locked down nature of the thing is violating some hacker’s human rights. Isn’t the anxiety of praying to God you didn’t brick your iPhone after unlocking it part of the thrill? 
Let’s face it, it is not Apple’s fault that the other firms are creating twenty thousand slightly different models a year without ever launching one that’s really amazing, and that Apple makes only one design that’s an immediate classic.
Not that Samsung or LG or Nokia or whatever are now facing immediate extinction. I guess one of them probably produces the iPhone anyway. (? TLTG (too lazy to google))
It seems that you have time to spew forth endless falsehoods with no supporting references. It would take a lot less effort and time for you to just rattle off a list of Apple GUI innovations, if they actually existed.
However, I think that you realize that you are wrong and you don’t want to admit it.
Interesting. Why don’t you provide a link to the patent application? If Apple actually applied for a multi-touch patent on a cell phone, I wish them luck with it.
On the contrary, the first one to have the patent is usually the inventor. A patent does not require a physical item. Indeed, a lot of patents/inventions are just drawings. The Iphone is merely the first multi touch cell phone in production, but the multi-touch cell phone was definitely invented prior to Apple’s production run.
Interesting. I have never heard of a product “winning” a usability study. What kind of usability study is it? Can you provide any reference or link?
Driving is a perfect example! Thanks for bringing it up! Be careful dialing that Iphone!
Also, one doesn’t need to see the screen:
when starting/stopping the mp3 when the phone is in one’s pocket;
when changing from ring to vibrate in a dark theatre;
when one is blind; etc.
How do you use the multi-touch with the same hand that is holding it?
Really?
I didn’t make that video comparison, nor did I write the many articles pointing out the similarities. But most would admit that it certainly looks close. I don’t claim that Apple copied the Prada, but it appears that way.
Actually, the manufacturing/design world is full of stories in which someone saw something and copied it, and made a killing. One such story that relates to computers/GUIs is when Bill gates first saw Visi-On.
It is difficult and foolish to make assertions based on internal development. One can only go by patents, published info and product releases.
I think I understand product development. I design/engineer products. In regards to my age, I am old enough to have attended design school when the expensive tuition was $1,100 per semester.
How about you?
On the contrary! — The story is not over by a longshot! There are few details on Apple’s patent application or on its claims. It doesn’t look like it is an attempt to patent multi-touch on a hand-held device (perhaps it is attempt to patent gestures).
In addition, a shallow search revealed that Nintendo was granted a patent for a hand-held, multi-touch device in February 2nd, 2006: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/02/26/patent-application-reveals-ninten…
Apple, good luck with your hand-held, multi-touch patent!
Again, exactly what has Apple innovated?
Again, I don’t claim that Apple copied the Prada. However, they are very similar in design, and the Prada was announced and released first.
Do you have stumps for hands? There are these things called fingers most people have them they have joints that allow them to bend and grasp things. The also can be controlled individually.
This allows people to used phones while grasping them with four fingers and use the other one to control the device.
A multi-touch device doesn’t use multiple touches for every action.
Yes really. You would know if you had actually used the device and not just made stuff up.
You have yet to provide a single one for yours.
We were talking about usability you dimwit. You claimed “power users” couldn’t used the phone and it was selling because of advertising.
Which you seem to suffer from. You also suffer from loss of all cognitive function.
You being born hasn’t had any impact to everyday life either.
The comparison is a joke. Its like taking two four door sedans and saying one copied from the other. The LG KE850 is not a smartphone. Its touch screen functionality is very primitive to the point of being pointless.
So?
Go read Apple’s patent portfolio then come back when you can actually back up any of your ludicrous claims.
I highly doubt that. Looks like a waste of money from the way you argue your points. Didn’t you have a class in critical thinking?
We’ll let the patent office decide that.
Too many to list. I’ll give you one, Firewire.
Don’t back peddle.
Must be difficult for you to use your fingers with two of them digging into each of your nostrils.
Learn verb tense — it will make you look less stupid.
And, incidentally, you were boasting about Iphone sales, and I responded with the sales/innovation question, you dip.
Not really.
So you are wrong.
I did, and the patents show that Apple did not innovate anything.
Would you like to make a little wager on the point? How much money do you have available?
The patent office already decided, you moron. Nintendo already has a patent on multi-touch handheld devices. Apple cannot overturn that patent to get a broad, multi-touch, hand-held patent. No way in hell. Or, would you care to make a little wager on that point?
A high speed serial bus is too obvious to qualify as an innovation. Also, it was developed by a lot of companies other than Apple.
Care to try again?
I rest my case.
I did, and the patents show that Apple did not innovate anything.
You have the comprehension skills of a grain of sand.
Much more than you have in your piggy bank. Ask mommy and daddy before you break it open.
Prove it with some data you ignoramus.
No I am done dealing with scum like you.
Glad to see that discussion on OSNews remains at such a high level. 🙂
Edited 2008-05-31 05:34 UTC
Don’t know about your seven year old nephew, but MY seven year old nephew and niece have absolutely no trouble using my sisters Nokia S60 phone to take pics, play games and play music.
Oh he can use other phones just fine. However he goes absolutely giddy about the iPhone when I visit. I have never seen him do that for a blackberry or Treo.
The bottom line is the iPhone is very useable. I use it for work all the time.
My neices went giddy when around a “Tickle-Me_Elmo.” That didn’t make the Elmo doll usable cell phone nor mp3 player.
Apparently that Tickle-me Elmo is smarter than you are for bringing up that absurd counter argument. At least that toy speaks coherently.
Let’s hope that your nephew grows up to not be the embarrassment of the family, like his Uncle “Dullhead.”
is Android? Does it provide a USB or Bluetooth SDK? Does it provide an abstraction of a mobile phone devices? Like modem and infra red? Otherwise it is useless for me.
iphone is nowhere successful as ipod. not because of technology but because of stupid carrier contract rules and cheating on subsidy to buy 2 year contract.
on other hand you dont need contract to use ipod.
US cellphone market is at primitive stage compared to rest of the world. therefore unless google comes with unlocked phone and force carriers to keep it unlocked, their OS is not going to pick up any mobile marketshare…
The iPhone was released 11 months ago and has sold 7-8 million phone which is much higher than the iPod sold when it was launched. Ipod sales sky rocketed in 2004 or so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ipod_sales_2008_Q1.svg
This I agree with. I would see more of an impact from Android outside the US than inside. The Nokia N95 is unlocked in the US but hasn’t gained much traction even though it is in the same price range as an iPhone.