Xerox created the GUI, and much of modern computing, but Jobs/Apple certainly deserve credit for the smartphone.
Before the iPhone the phone market was primarily "feature phones" - flip phones with a keyboard and a few built-in JavaScript apps. The Blackberry wasn't much different - just a better keyboard with a focus on messaging/business use.
The iPhone was quite radical - masterfully presented as an iPod, phone, and internet communications device, before revealing that they were all capabilities of the same device.
The effect on the phone market was immediate, and turned the market upside down. It was basically the end of Nokia who had been dominant up to that point, and caused everyone else to scrap current plans and go back to the drawing board, realizing that this new pocket-computer smartphone concept, with it's large touch screen interface was obviously the future.
The smartphone is nothing more than a merge of a traditional cell phone (what we now call "feature phone") and a PDA. Such a merge would happen sooner or later, either with PDAs acquiring the ability to also act as cell phones, or with cell phones gaining the ability to also act as PDAs. Apple might have accelerated that change, but it was inevitable.
I don't think that framing really gives enough credit to how novel the iPhone was, and how it shook up the market when it was introduced.
Yes, PDAs had already been a thing for a long time (Psion Organizer), and Apple themselves had experimented with this category too with the Newton, before the Palm Pilot then became so dominant.
What was novel about the smart phone - really it's defining characteristic, was it wasn't a primarily single purpose device like a PDA, or phone, or MP-3 player/iPod, or camera, or handheld web browser, but rather a universal hand held computer/communications device, and one whose functionality was not limited to what you got out of the box. The large touch screen, with gesture-based UI, was also quite novel, and a large part of what made it successful and generic.
It's easy to look in the rear view mirror and say that most inventions/innovations were inevitable and just a product of their times, but the iPhone was quite shocking when first launched and did shake up the industry - nobody was expecting it, or expecting how popular such a device would be. Steve Ballmer famously laughed at the iPhone after it's launch and questioned who would want it, given the high cost and lack of a keyboard (a feature, not a deficit!).. and then of course went on to try unsuccessfully to copy it.
That just shows you how warped the minds of the general public are. They fail to realize the only thing Jobs did was know the right people then take all the credit…
This is how (checks notes) everything has always worked.
In a large project such as introducing the first GUI for general use, you can't do everything yourself. If you're within a company, you hire people. You take inspiration from the outside. It's a team effort, and not the result of a lone genius.
That does not diminish what Jobs did. The Mac and the Lisa were underway before the Xerox PARC visit. The idea of mixed graphics and text were already out there as an ideal—it's pretty obvious if you think about it. Engelbart's demo was already legendary.
But as we all know, it's one thing for a technology to exist in a research lab, and quite another for it to be adopted by millions of people. That's where Jobs was actually exceptional. He was able to manage these massive projects with just the right compromises to take great technology and turn it into great products.
Lmao right!? Dude stole all that from Xerox and MS came out with palm pilots early 2000s then you had black berry. Amazing how many people think CEOs actually did the work they get credit for when they almost virtually all were in the right spot with the right people. Notice none of them can reproduce or start another ultra successful startup… Zuckerberg is a perfect example of one hit wonder and he wasn’t even the first to create social sites.. You had MySpace and a ton of others..
Palm Pilots and Blackberrys existed before the iPhone, so why don't they exist anymore? Why are their founders historical side notes?
Because they didn't usher in the smartphone revolution. They just weren't good enough for the mass market. Palm was a great early start, but so was Apple's Newton.
So yes, the idea of a smartphone and some of the components existed before the iPhone, but nothing was "stolen." Jobs was the one who first crystalized the smartphone as we know it now. And yes, he used a team, because CEOs don't literally do all of the work of the company.
Xerox created the GUI, and much of modern computing, but Jobs/Apple certainly deserve credit for the smartphone.
Before the iPhone the phone market was primarily "feature phones" - flip phones with a keyboard and a few built-in JavaScript apps. The Blackberry wasn't much different - just a better keyboard with a focus on messaging/business use.
The iPhone was quite radical - masterfully presented as an iPod, phone, and internet communications device, before revealing that they were all capabilities of the same device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qPAY9JqE4
The effect on the phone market was immediate, and turned the market upside down. It was basically the end of Nokia who had been dominant up to that point, and caused everyone else to scrap current plans and go back to the drawing board, realizing that this new pocket-computer smartphone concept, with it's large touch screen interface was obviously the future.
The smartphone is nothing more than a merge of a traditional cell phone (what we now call "feature phone") and a PDA. Such a merge would happen sooner or later, either with PDAs acquiring the ability to also act as cell phones, or with cell phones gaining the ability to also act as PDAs. Apple might have accelerated that change, but it was inevitable.
I don't think that framing really gives enough credit to how novel the iPhone was, and how it shook up the market when it was introduced.
Yes, PDAs had already been a thing for a long time (Psion Organizer), and Apple themselves had experimented with this category too with the Newton, before the Palm Pilot then became so dominant.
What was novel about the smart phone - really it's defining characteristic, was it wasn't a primarily single purpose device like a PDA, or phone, or MP-3 player/iPod, or camera, or handheld web browser, but rather a universal hand held computer/communications device, and one whose functionality was not limited to what you got out of the box. The large touch screen, with gesture-based UI, was also quite novel, and a large part of what made it successful and generic.
It's easy to look in the rear view mirror and say that most inventions/innovations were inevitable and just a product of their times, but the iPhone was quite shocking when first launched and did shake up the industry - nobody was expecting it, or expecting how popular such a device would be. Steve Ballmer famously laughed at the iPhone after it's launch and questioned who would want it, given the high cost and lack of a keyboard (a feature, not a deficit!).. and then of course went on to try unsuccessfully to copy it.
3 replies →
He didn’t have to be the first to be the one most associated with popularizing the technology.
That just shows you how warped the minds of the general public are. They fail to realize the only thing Jobs did was know the right people then take all the credit…
This is how (checks notes) everything has always worked.
In a large project such as introducing the first GUI for general use, you can't do everything yourself. If you're within a company, you hire people. You take inspiration from the outside. It's a team effort, and not the result of a lone genius.
That does not diminish what Jobs did. The Mac and the Lisa were underway before the Xerox PARC visit. The idea of mixed graphics and text were already out there as an ideal—it's pretty obvious if you think about it. Engelbart's demo was already legendary.
But as we all know, it's one thing for a technology to exist in a research lab, and quite another for it to be adopted by millions of people. That's where Jobs was actually exceptional. He was able to manage these massive projects with just the right compromises to take great technology and turn it into great products.
2 replies →
Lmao right!? Dude stole all that from Xerox and MS came out with palm pilots early 2000s then you had black berry. Amazing how many people think CEOs actually did the work they get credit for when they almost virtually all were in the right spot with the right people. Notice none of them can reproduce or start another ultra successful startup… Zuckerberg is a perfect example of one hit wonder and he wasn’t even the first to create social sites.. You had MySpace and a ton of others..
Palm Pilots and Blackberrys existed before the iPhone, so why don't they exist anymore? Why are their founders historical side notes?
Because they didn't usher in the smartphone revolution. They just weren't good enough for the mass market. Palm was a great early start, but so was Apple's Newton.
So yes, the idea of a smartphone and some of the components existed before the iPhone, but nothing was "stolen." Jobs was the one who first crystalized the smartphone as we know it now. And yes, he used a team, because CEOs don't literally do all of the work of the company.