[bennythomsson]

It goes on.

> the new standard that companies like Samsung and Google would clone the same way they cloned the hardware and software design of the iPhone.

That's misrepresenting history in ways it's not even funny.

Stopped reading at that point. The article took too long to even sketch it's main point anyway.

[scosman]

I get not loving the "Apple invented everything" mantra some people have, but the iPhone genuinely redefined the smart phone category. The industry has 100% coalesced on the model invented by Apple. Nothing like this existed as a full package before the iPhone and now are almost universal:

- No physical keyboard + touch keyboard

- Modern OS kernel (not embedded specific kernel)

- Desktop browser engine

- Capacitive touchscreen + finger instead of stylus - one or two phones had capTouch before, but they were far from standard, and they still had physical keyboards for typing

- Vertical by default orientation

- Short 1 day battery life in favour of more power/features (weird to list, but was a bold move everyone mocked then followed)

They totally took out the existing market (Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, a variety of OEM OSs). Android succeeded but came after, still had keyboards on its flagships the years after iPhone came out (G1, Droid), and took these design cues from iPhone.

The Mac GUI with mouse+keyboard+windows was also huge. Admittedly not first to invent it (Xerox PARC), but first to ship it as a package is still hugely impressive. Few people commercialize a new product before it existed in some lab.

[gamblor956]

- No physical keyboard + touch keyboard (Windows Mobile had this first)

- Modern OS kernel (not embedded specific kernel) (Blackberry had this first)

- Desktop browser engine (iOS didn't have a "desktop" browser engine, it had a stripped-down mobile browser engine. But on this note, Windows Mobile did support desktop browser engines.)

- Capacitive touchscreen + finger instead of stylus - one or two phones had capTouch before, but they were far from standard, and they still had physical keyboards for typing (LG Prada had the first capacitive touchscreen)

- Vertical by default orientation (Almost every smartphone at this point was vertical by default, with horizontal-by default being the exception.)

- Short 1 day battery life in favour of more power/features (weird to list, but was a bold move everyone mocked then followed) (Windows Mobile had this years before Apple)

Literally everything that Apple is credited for with the iPhone...others had it first. The true genius of the iPhone was the marketing...Apple still gets credit today for "inventing" features that Android phones have had for years (zoom cameras? AI? notes? custom emojies? embedded fingerprint readers? integrated payment?)

Apple has always been the follower: it copies what others have done, and makes minor improvements, then markets the hell out of those minor improvements to make them seem revolutionary.

[scosman]

None of the phones listed looks remotely like a modern smartphone. The iPhone does.

I worked on WinMo at MSFT at that time. You are comparing devices with physical keyboard and a crappy virtual keyboard that required a stylus to modern smartphones?

I mentioned the LG Prada - yes had cap touch, but not touch typing (physical slide out keyboard).

Almost every WM, BB and Symbian SKU had horizon screens (over keyboards).

Blackberry integrated QNX post iPhone.

First iPhone had WebKit.

All of these facts seem to be incorrect.

Again: the combination of these was a huge shift, and every one followed it.

[gamblor956]

I still have my HP IPAQ and it is most definitely a vertical screen (they all were, and only some of them had keyboards). But sure, if you exclude all previous vertical phones, Apple was the first vertical phone ever...

Also, you have your devices mixed up. The LG Prada first gen (2007) did not have a keyboard; the 2nd generation (LG Prada II, 2008) had the slide-out keyboard. And on that note, the iPhone shares so many design elements from the original mockup of the Prada from LG's initial announcement of the device that most tech reviewers thought Apple copied the Prada. It's a good thing for Apple that LG failed to file timely design patents.

So, it seems that all of your facts are the incorrect ones.

[scosman]

The HP IPAQ was mostly PocketPCs (PDAs) without modems - those models aren't even smartphones. There are definitely models without vertical screens despite your claim. The HP IPAQs that had modems all had keys on the front (keyboard, dpad+several extra, or number pads). The one with a d-pad+feature keys (fewest buttons) had a detachable QWERT keyboard. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPAQ

Re:LG Prada 1: I didn't realize there was an earlier model without keyboard (it wasn't released globally). Looked it up: it has T9 typing, no QWERT of any kind, only 8mb (mb!) of storage, no wifi, and a ported feature phone OS. It in no way resembles a modern smartphone.

You didn't mention the other 3 claims I debunked.

Read the comment you're replying to. I didn't say they were first to market with every single item on the list. I said "Nothing like this existed as a full package before the iPhone". The LG Prada has 2/6 (and is missing things which are required to be a "smartphone" at all). The HP IPAQ is another 2/6. Apple was genuinely were first with several of these big ones: non-embedded kernel, functional finger-typing (not stylus), desktop web engine, slate form factor. Now 99%+ of smart phones use the design decisions iPhone pioneered. Calling the iPhone "minor improvement" of what came before is wild. It was a brilliant both technically and for its design.

[gamblor956]

Now 99%+ of smart phones use the design decisions iPhone pioneered

Given that the iPhone UI was based on the LG Prada, it would seem that LG Prada is the pioneer. And on that note, you haven't been able to mention a single that the Apple actually did first that it didn't just copy from an Android device (or other competitor).

As you keep moving the goal posts and ignoring things that prove Apple wasn't the inventor of everything, I'm going to bow out of this conversation now.

[Clubber]

IIRC, all the Google/Samsung phones had keyboards because they copied the Blackberry. Once the iPhone was released with the screen keyboard, all the Google phones changed to that.

They didn't clone everything, but they cloned a lot in the early days. Rounded corners was another one. Now it seems like Apple is cloning Google/Samsung more.

[tmzt]

The first versions of Android that the public saw were very similar to the OS on a BlackBerry or Danger HipTop. The G1 even used the same mechanism to deploy the keyboard.

As far as the rounded corners, I remember seeing a reduced Google Reader view of Engadget later that year that had every device looking the same from the top third up. I really wish I had a screenshot.

There is now a lot of cross inspriation and features that are copied in both directions, as well as both implementing the same thing at around the same time (Intelligence and Gemini).

On the Android side, Pixel gets most new features first while Samsung offers their own take. Samsung is generally ahead of their direct competitors in terms of hardware.

[scosman]

Nit: the Danger mechanism was waaaaay cooler than the G1's. It did this amazing spin I've always missed. The G1 was a little 2-hinge flip-up that was satisfying, but didn't do the amazing 180 that the sidekick did.

[dexterdog]

There were no google phones until 2010 unless you count the HTCDream which was not designed to be used for anything but development.

[n144q]

I started to have doubts about the article as soon as seeing the Samsung Galaxy vs iPhone comparison. The author exaggerates things and rewrites history too much.