[wlamont]

I remember when the first iphone was released in 2007. I had several friends working at Blackberry at the time and they were dismissive of the iphone as merely a "toy". I always quiped in response "who doesn't love toys?".

Had Blackberry taken the threat of the iphone more seriously, the smartphone market would look very different.

[hrktb]

I think it’s way more complex than that. Blackberry made attempts at touch screens but they were all crappy.

Some engineers might have been dismissive, but as a company I think it tried its best to live in the future. It just didn’t have the insight to take the right tradeoffs with the more efficient tech.

Japanese phone makers had the same issue. As early as 2005 some maker tried to have touch screens, some with really innovative interfaces to compensate for the technology, but it stayed niche devices.

I don’t think anyone really dismissed touch interfaces as non threatening. It was just damn hard to have anything that was remotely useful.