I think there is some survival bias in the analysis, and that something like the iPhone was inevitable given all the experimentation going on in the market.
Apple also made the Newton. But folks don't call back to it or praise its makers very often.
Actually, I’ve found people often do praise the Newton. They lament it as being ahead of its time, but in terms of feeling it actually did have the right vibe. The tech just wasn’t there yet at the time.
I found the idea fascinating, but it was too clunky and heavy for the features it offered. I think the concept was too far ahead of its time, it couldn’t be implemented well in available tech.
For that matter, the Palm Pilot was beloved of a lot of techies at the time but neither the input nor synchronization technology/infrastructure were really there. I won one at a trade show and even upgraded it later but, honestly, it wasn't all that useful.
> something like the iPhone was inevitable given all the experimentation going on in the market.
I agree, but I don't think it would have been as polished as the iPhone out of the gate.
> Apple also made the Newton. But folks don't call back to it or praise its makers very often.
As a sibling comment mentioned, I think the Newton was perhaps better than you're giving it credit for, but my point isn't that Apple makes great products, it's that it's possible at certain times for certain teams within large companies to "feel it".
Perhaps entertainment could be another example. Do you think the team that made Wall-E didn't "feel it"? What about Zelda Breath of the Wild?
I think people are forgetting how extremely unpolished the iPhone was out of the gate. No app store. Even something as fundamental as copy/paste took until years later.
You’re talking about features. It didn’t have that many, sure.
But the features it did have were extremely well polished.
Part of the reason it took them forever to add copy/paste is because Android phones had 12 different ways to do it and it was unintuitive as a result. I’m not suggesting Apple’s solution is better; but it’s definitely intentional and thought-through.
At the time, Apple was one of the very few companies with really intentional design. Now many companies have adopted that philosophy.
There's a difference between polished and feature-rich. I'd actually argue the iPhone was more "polished" before they introduced the app store—their vision was pure.
Apple also made the Newton. But folks don't call back to it or praise its makers very often.