Apple iPhone 1

Having used a variety of pre-iPhone WinCE, Palm, Psion, etc PDAs, going purely by bullet points specs, the best WinMo devices launched in 2007 were capable and even feature-rich, but I agree the overall user experience was hobbled. Large touch-screen devices integrating phone, data and media needed a different UX and OS. MSFT's business was too platform-centric to take the strategic risk and their mindset was too incremental to make the conceptual leap. I was at the 2007 iPhone announcement, got hands-on a prototype in the booth and had a dev unit pre-ship. As a technology strategist for a F500 ISV, my job was to assess the changing mobile device landscape. With the iPhone I think Apple deserves significant credit for two big things: the conceptual leap to a new UX/OS and going all-in on the large touch screen. Completely sacrificing both a physical keyboard or pen was bold and controversial. While it was the right long-term vision, the reality which often gets glossed over, is the iPhone 1 didn't deliver on the vision and early adopters struggled. It wasn't until the iPhone 3G shipped 18 months later and the app store was released that the iPhone first began to slowly fulfill it's promise. I didn't daily drive an iPhone until the 3G. In recent years, I think many look back with rose-colored glasses at the iPhone launch and give Apple even more expansive credit for the "iPhone breakthrough" than the legitimate credit they justly deserve. Of the major players at the time, Ap…

> Who was the exact individual that had the vision for glass multi-touch screens and sick gesture like effects (scroll). Like almost all new products later thought of as 'visionary' innovations, the first iPhone built on pre-existing ideas but integrated them particularly well and added some excellent new refinements. It's easy to forget that the prior five years had been a crucible of in-market experimentation between companies like Nokia, Palm, HP, Sony, Ericsson and Blackberry with platforms like Pocket PC, Palm OS, Windows CE and Windows Mobile. The iPhone was announced in Jan 2007 at MacWorld (and shipped in July), I was there and played with it extensively in the Apple booth. I remember thinking it had some especially clever ideas and was a very nice implementation. It advanced the "premium pocket phone" bar up to a new level but I didn't see it as unusually visionary. It was definitely significant but still a (large) step in an ongoing progression of refinement, integration and search for product/market fit. There were already large color touchscreen devices which integrated a phone, messaging, camera, music player, Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS. Here's an article looking at a few pre-iPhone devices: https://www.phonearena.com/news/6-great-smartphones-from-10-... . The iPhone 1's design was uniquely simple and svelte but I was immediately concerned about it having enough battery to support that screen. The choice to go with just "One Big Button" and no physical keyboard or…

The iPhone had a non-removable battery, which was a step backwards for consumers. And there was nothing special about it. At the time I had an HTC TyTN 2 phone that did everything the iPhone could do and more, and had a removable battery, about the same size as the battery inside the iPhone 1. If you look at photos of the TyTN 2 battery, and the iPhone 1 battery, they are very close to the same size. There was very little difference between those batteries. The TyTN 2 had a 1350mA hour lithium battery. The iPhone 1 had a 1400mA hour lithium battery. Practically no difference there in size or capacity. So, no, the iPhone's battery was not a "technical marvel" any more than other phones of that era. And in fact Apple's was a step back by being non-removable. I absolutely loved having a removable battery, because I could bring 2 or 3 with me on a long trip and never have to charge the phone. Apple was less functional in that way.

> Also first gen iPad was basically slow as a crippled sloth. It was quickly abandoned by both consumers and Apple And it had this bulging back so it wouldn't lie still on a table. It was like a bobblehead. It was a really weird design. The iPad 2 and all further iPads fixed that. And they were all supported for much longer too, yes. It was really a weird 1st gen product. The same with the iPhone now that I think of it, with its horribly slow 2G and annoyingly recessed headphone jack. Again fixed on the second model. Oh and the first gen MacBook that had only 1 (deeply recessed) usb port and this huge clamshell case that looked like a ladies handbag if you carried it by its handle. Cool yes but practical no. And the round mouse so you couldn't feel which way was up. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if someone actually tried to use this stuff before it was shipped out the door XD I had both the iPad 1 and iPhone 1 though and it was cool to be an early adopter. But for the vision pro lol no, out of my price range.

I honestly think that people like you experienced smartphones in mid 2010s and just extrapolating back to what they think they were in late 2000s, When iPhone came out, the mobile internet was so shit and screen was very low res, so the benefit of having a full touchscreen was minimal (mostly being able to select things directly, but that was a very small advantage). Mobile web wasn't a thing. You had to have wifi for any real speed. And if you had wifi, you were likely in a building where you could sit down, and there were things like netbooks and mobile pcs that were just better than the iPhone for doing web stuff. Even people with iPhones still mainly used them as iPods and phones before 3g cellular. The keyboard on Blackberries was in fact better UX because it was easier to use and faster to type on, without any delay in appearance. The on screen keyboards were all shit until swipe typing became defacto standard. And then you look at the drawbacks, like no removable battery, no microsd expansion, no shit proprietary cables that would break, no copy/paste, e.t.c, all of them absolutely make the UX horrible.