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by DrScientist 495 days ago
> it's a PDA with more modern technology

Lots of people, including Apple with the Newton, tried to build a really great PDA - some people loved them, most found them too complex and slow.

I'd argue that when the iPhone originally shipped ( remember on shipping it didn't have an App store or even a custom app story - Steve said just write a web app ), it was simply a phone, a web browser, and a music player.

In my view it wasn't trying to be a PDA at all - all that came later.
1 comments
palata 495 days ago
> it was simply a phone, a web browser, and a music player.

Sure, but again not revolutionary. I had a Nokia that was a phone, a web browser and a music player. The iPhone was just better at that, but not very different in the end.

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DrScientist 495 days ago
Sure everything is incremental - but I think you are missing the key feature of the iPhone that really changed how you interacted with it.

A really great multi-touch screen - sure there were touch devices before - and even multitouch ones, but my recollection was they would both miss/confuse inputs and have significant input lag and most were single input - the iPhone just worked as you'd expect - it felt magical. 'You got me at scrolling'

If you take a great touch experience, and a software user interface rather than buttons, then you have a platform with infinitely reconfigurable interaction modes.

Form is function. The user interface ( in the broadest sense of how you interact with the computer ) is key. They delivered touch that worked, in a form factor you could hold.

One of the reasons ChatGPT feels revolutionary is it has changed how people interact with their computers - creating a new conversational mode - ( and sure Eliza goes back a long way as well - but that was a toy ).

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