
A smartphone retrospective - mattparcher
http://www.marco.org/980434663
======
pavlov
I clicked on the link expecting a smartphone retrospective, but instead got
"iPad will rule"... At least it was short.

\--

It needs to be pointed out that the Treo/Blackberry form factor was not the
only one - or even the dominant one, globally - before 2007.

The all-touchscreen phone was pioneered by Ericsson starting in 2000...

Ericsson R380: <http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/pda/ericr380/index.htm>

Sony Ericsson P900: <http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_p900-544.php>

Nokia has been making "micro-laptop" style smartphones since 1996:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Communicator>

The standard phone keypad is still the world's best-selling smartphone form
factor since 2002: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7650>

A company called MyOrigo introduced a buttonless touchscreen smartphone with
accelerometer controls in 2003: <http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=547>

IMHO, these devices ought to have a place in any smartphone retrospective.

~~~
nanairo
Where were all the finger-based touch screen back then? Do you remember how
many people said it wouldn't work, because either someone tried it or failed,
because it didn't have a stylus that was "clearly better", or because it
didn't have a hardware keyboard?

Look at the current market?

You want to bash Apple, feel free: there's hundred of reasons to. But at least
give credit where credit is due. The Apple iPhone did revolutionise an
industry, and a LOT of tech "experts" and geeks said it was going to fail and
it was a toy. Now it's just "one of many".

~~~
pavlov
Where's the Apple bashing in my reply? Where did I not give credit?

I was just trying to say that a "smartphone retrospective" ought to include
some more information than merely: "Well, we had the Treo, and then 2007
happened."

\--

Btw, do you notice that your "it didn't exist before, and people said it
wouldn't work" line of argument applies equally well to the devices I
mentioned...

1996 / Nokia: "Who wants a small laptop crammed inside a phone?"

2000 / Ericsson: "A phone needs real hardware keys. This touchscreen stuff
won't work."

2003 / MyOrigo: "Sensors on a phone? That's useless."

Are these innovations worthless?

~~~
nanairo
True, point taken (and I upvoted you as an apology). However your post still
came out as a bit of a "Geez, Apple wasn't that special", though admittedly
then I went a step too far and just assumed you were posting some anti-Apple
stuff. Sorry for my prejudice.

However a few things to say. The Nokia messenger was imho awesome, but it did
not caught on, and eventually Nokia itself killed it (only to revive it many
years later).

I thought the Ericsson P800 (correct?) was great, and I still do. However I
also think it's representative of part of the problem too: Ericsson didn't
feel like losing anything, they crammed it with everything imaginable. It had
a touchscreen (for a stylus) but you could use it with a keyboard. Why? It
didn't seem like they believed it that much. Sure, you may say the problem was
that the OS at the time could not allow you to do everything with a stylus,
but then the question is: why didn't Ericson worked on that? They had control
of the whole system!

MyOrigo, I admit I never heard of it.

So yes, apologise and I never meant to say that Apple is some kind of genius
of the tech world, and that nobody else innovate: there's a lot others too,
and there are a lot of problems with Apple products too.

But I think Apple has a tendency to play harder, to really take a bet. For the
iPhone (as before the iPod) they shopped around for just the right piece of
tech, often discovering some small startup nobody had heard of until then.
Maybe they would change the interface (like the clickwheel). They would get a
whole software stack on top of it, just tuned for that specific product. They
would spend ages polishing it, and most importantly if they think a technology
is better, they would have no problem neglecting any alternative.

Think back at other companies. Why they don't do that? I would imagine if
Ericsson found risky to add a touchscreen, the idea of spending many years
perfecting such a phone, creating the right OS, using the right tech, removing
some stuff... just maybe to release it 3 years later after spending a _lot_ of
money, and finding they failed would be a huge loss.

Apple seems to take these bets (and to be honest sometimes they lose too). I
think that's why the iPhone was really much more of a discontinuity than
previous smartphones.

------
guelo
Huh? Before Apple all smartphones looked like Blackberrys? I could show you
100 popular non-keyboard-having pre-2007 devices, starting with the PalmPilot
a decade before the iPhone. Besides, a lot of people still use and like the
Blackberry form factor considering they're still the number one smartphone.

So no one will buy a netbook in 3 years? Apple fanbois are just ridiculous.

~~~
ajg1977
Indeed. Here's the phone I had in 2006. It even had an onscreen keyboard that
I often used for knocking out quick replies to emails or SMS messages. Heck,
it even did copy & paste and MMS :)

<http://www.mobiletechreview.com/cingular-8125.htm>

Aside from a few extra buttons it looks pretty similar to today's iPhone, and
very similar to Android and WP7 phones. Apple certainly did a great job of
refining all the elements and introducing capacitive touch screens, but to
suggest they invented the form factor is just bullshit.

~~~
snom370
They didn't invent the form factor, but they were the first to make it good
enough to become successful. There's been tablets around for two decades, but
the iPad is the first to achieve widespread success outside of niche markets.
Even Apple had the Newton which they killed off (imagine how the world would
look if Apple was the one with an old, stylus-optimized mobile device OS in
2007).

------
csmeder
I made a graph <http://chris.smeder.com/essays/3_stevejobs.htm> when the iPad
came out that describes the public's reaction to Jobs' product decisions and
then how they feel a year or so later about his decisions. The point being
people have such little faith in some one who has made the tough but right
decision so many times.

For example:

\- removing the arrow keys from the original Mac
[http://www.asktog.com/columns/082iPad&Mac.html](http://www.asktog.com/columns/082iPad&Mac.html)

\- removing the floppy drive from computers

\- making the iMac not upgradable (this made so many people angry). Yet few
care that most computers, laptops, bought today are not upgradable.

\- non removable battery

\- Expensive, no wifi (lame)

\- less features than the competition

\- no flash

\- iOS instead of Mac OSX

~~~
nanairo
I agree with your argument, and I upvoted you for that.

But that graph? Seriously???

A bit of a Job's fan? ;)

------
kenjackson
This article is wrong on multiple counts: 1) The iPhone didn't take off
because it had no keyboard. It took off because it it had a decent web-
browser. 2) Smartphones were a niche device in 2007. And generally were
considered products that were severely lacking. The WinMo UI was considered a
dog before the iPhone ever appeared. 3) Laptops aren't a niche product and
generally aren't considered dogs. In general no one is looking for a laptop
replacement, even amoung those that bought iPads.

~~~
nanairo
To answer your three points:

1) Hindsight is always 20/20 right? People were predicting that the no
keyboard thing was such a deal breaker than together with the no replaceable
battery, it would make the iPhone a failure.

Obviously nobody here it's arguing that the iPhone is better because it
doesn't have a keyboard: hey, if you could have your cake and eat it too, why
not? But the point is that you need to make compromises, and by removing the
keyboard Apple bet that the inconvenience was going to be more than made up by
the advantages. Apparently they were right.

2) Yes, they were considered to be lacking though not as much as you think. In
fact, many people complained about the iPhone because it couldn't do
everything their smartphone could. Also knowing you have a problem, and
knowing how to solve it are two hugely different things.

3) The point was about netbooks. Many people bought them as a secondary
computer, to carry around, browse the web, etc. The iPad may or may not be a
netbook replacement, but it is not being considered as a replacement for your
main computer.

Apple had the balls to take a bet (as did Asus with the original netbook,
imho) and won. Now suddenly it was obvious, not a big deal, etc.. etc...

~~~
kenjackson
I disagree with your answers, but maybe in subtle ways.

1) The no keyboard thing was a deal breaker. But Apple did something no one
had seen before. They introduced an exceptionally good onscreen keyboard.
Miles ahead of the competition. They insight Apple had wasn't so much that we
could just get rid of keyboards. It was that they could create a decent
onscreen keyboard experience. To me, that is fundamentally different.

Replaceable battery? The only people who cared about that are pundits who have
to nitpick about everything. How many people do you know that have a backup
battery. I think I literally know nobody who does.

2) My point with #2 was that smartphones as devices were considered to be
extremely flawed. Satisfaction with their smartphone was very low. This would
make it easy for a better device to effectively change the whole landscape as
no one really had a high satisfaction device.

3) OK, I probably just read netbook as laptop.

I do think you underestimate how big of a deal it is/was. Apple revolutionized
the smartphone industry. My argument against the article is I think they did
it via software, not by form factor.

~~~
nanairo
Yeah, I think we kind of agree.

Re: #1 personally I think the reason why Apple could make a good onscreen
keyboard is because they tried, and tried hard. I don't think there was any
secret sauce: it's kind of the only thing you can do if you decided to go full
screen

As for replaceable batteries I am with you... though when you read these sites
it seems like everybody does mind.

As for point #2 I think the point the author was making is along your same
lines. Just that he feels netbooks have also got very poor satisfaction rates
(and I actually think studies have shown that, unless you really know what you
are getting or are a geek).

As for hardware vs. software, I agree the secret sauce of Apple is in the
software, but they also have a solid hardware, and in the hardware they often
need to take the tough choices that others don't dare take.

------
lallysingh
More than anything else, the article was a wonderful display of the power of
well-placed graphics to make the point. Using the vertical axis as time,
they're implying a wonderfully straightforward visual pattern of an apple
singularity vs a reactionary pulse (horizontal axis) of the industry. Really
smacks you in the face.

~~~
wvenable
If anything else, this article is a wonderful display of the power of
misleading graphics to make a point. For comparison, this was my first
smartphone in 2002 (5 years before the iPhone):

[http://www.mobilemag.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/05/image_56...](http://www.mobilemag.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/05/image_56834_superimage.jpg)

~~~
ericd
Styli suck pretty hard. Can you point to a comparable capacitative screen
phone that predated the iPhone? I'm sure there are probably a couple, but most
of those probably had some serious shortcomings which Apple's did not.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Styli seem to work pretty well for Nintendo with their DS. Much easier to see
what's going on without a finger in the way. Sold over a 100 million of them
and made ridiculous profits too, which seem to be the Apple fans' metrics of
choice when it comes to success these days.

~~~
nanairo
I don't think the stylus is really that bad. In fact it may be better in some
situation. But if you really think it's so great, then let me ask you this:
why does no smartphone now come with a stylus?

I am not saying that finger is better. But Apple believed it was better and
worked with it. Personally I think it's an alternative. But why has everybody
followed Apple like sheep? Can nobody else think with their own brain?

------
anactofgod
Interesting retrospective presentation. But I have two quibbles with the
stated facts. First, some pre-iPhone smartphones had touchscreens, but
required a stylus to be effective. Secondly, tablets weren't being ignored
pre-iPad. They just weren't being done particularly well, outside of a few
industry-specific verticals.

BTW, these aren't the first instances Apple changed the design norms for the
mobile industry. Anyone remember what laptops looked like before the PowerBook
100? Moving the keyboard forward towards the screen to make room for the
trackball provided the rest of the laptop manufacturers the template for
laptops that continues to be used to this day.

We benefit because we have room to rest our wrists between typing spells.

------
jrockway
What's the serious shortcoming on the netbook? That it has a keyboard, that I
can run any software I want to, and that I can get unlimited 3G from any
provider I want?

Yeah, that sucks. I'm trashing my netbook _right now_!

~~~
rimantas
yup. Try reading your netbook in portrait orientation. That keyboard comes
really handy then.

~~~
jrockway
Try using your iPad as a skateboard. The lack of wheels really comes in handy
then!

------
muyyatin
A large number of smartphones still have keyboards because it is a faster way
to type. Maybe this will change with advances in speech recognition, but most
people I know type much more on their netbooks than with their smartphones.

~~~
dasil003
Speech recognition will never make the need for good text entry go away simply
because people do not want to speak their private thoughts out loud in public.

~~~
philwelch
In addition to that problem, typing is faster than talking; writing and
speaking are for many people completely different modes of thinking with their
own voice and diction; going back and editing is too awkward and difficult
with speech recognition--for instance, adding this very phrase after typing
out much more of my post would have probably been more effort than it was
worth, as would have been reorganizing this ugly block of text into some sort
of list; talking out loud takes more energy and dries out your mouth; dozens
of people in an office together can all type without bothering each other very
much; people with funny accents, speech impediments, very bad colds, or who
have lost their voice can type more easily than their voices can be
transcribed even by a skilled human transcriptionist, much less a speech
recognition engine; there are fundamental complications with speech
recognition, such as capitalization, punctuation, syntax, use of proper names,
neologisms, and other terms unfamiliar to the engine, as well as
distinguishing commands to the speech recognition engine from speech to be
recognized and transcribed, and all of these complications can be easily
resolved in any arbitrarily user-defined fashion whilst typing--for instance,
my choice to write the bulk of this post as a single sentence consisting of
multiple independent clauses strung together with semicolons would be more
difficult to implement in any speech-recognition engine; and finally, many
people who learned the language from books more than from speech don't even
know how to pronounce certain words they have only seen in print and would
have their vocabularies reduced tremendously if restricted to speech
recognition--as an example, it wasn't until college until I learned the
correct pronunciation of the word "albeit", a word which I have seen far more
often in print than I have ever heard it said out loud, reflecting my earlier
point about how people's spoken diction often differs from their written
diction.

------
Tichy
I wish there was a way to ban Apple fanboyism from HN.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
Oh yeah, if only were a way to ban those that don't think the same we do. Only
talk with those that have the same beliefs...

~~~
Tichy
I am willing to discuss Apple, but fanboyism is not really conductive to
dialogues.

------
nchlswu
Not to take away from Apple's brilliance, this is a gross oversimplification;
it's simple as that.

~~~
nanairo
Well, I'd be surprised anyone read (or would write) a 500 words article on the
last 5 years of smartphones and assume it wasn't a gross oversimplification.

------
ZeroGravitas
I've been waiting a couple of years for a netbook with an ARM processor and a
non-Windows OS. I don't think it's a coincidence that those features apply to
the iPad and people think it's a big jump forward.

Just as with the iPod and iPhone the story is just as much about what others
were actively fighting against (mp3 support, freedom from carrier
interference) as what Apple positively stands for. That doesn't take anything
away from Apple becuase they bucked those trends, it just makes me sad that we
had to wait for someone with their clout to enter the Market and shake things
up. What about the many markets they don't bother with?

------
baddox
This article claims that a double standard exists. I disagree. I think that
the iPhone isn't so great "because of its lack of a keyboard, its non-
removable battery, its lack of expansion slots or ports, and other hardware
features..." I also think that the iPad isn't so great because it's "not
capable enough because of its lack of a keyboard, its non-removable battery,
its lack of expansion slots or ports, and other hardware features..."

------
megablast
The future is clear, no keyboards!

~~~
wingo
I meant to upvote, but touched the down instead!

------
Legion
Where's the Newton?

------
kiba
I like fatter keyboard with feedback on my netbook, pretty please. Also, get
rid of the caps lock and make the keyboard symmetrical.

Make the monitor detachable while you're at it.

~~~
sliverstorm
Would you like some cheese with your whine?

