[Nicole060]

Not only the reviews of the people who had tried the device were glowing, even of those who turned into Apple haters lately (either because of the trial or because of app store policies), but the opinion of those who had NOT tried the device is even more interesting, as 99% of those who had never tried a device that had an actually working touchscreen, with the right software inside, thought that the iPhone could only fail ! Everyone was predicting the failure of the iPhone because they couldn't imagine a device without a keyboard nor a stylus could work.

This is the kind of drivel that was shared around the internet at the time of the iPhone's release : http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone One of the first lines : "First of all, the E70 has a full keyboard, not some shitty stripped down, tap-and-pray smudgy piece of shit."

I wonder what the author and the people who spread that link all over the internet at the time think of most Android handsets, Windows Phone, since they hated so much the idea of a phone without a keyboard.

When you look at the criticism from those who had not tried the device you really have to stop and ask : was the iPhone obvious ? The answer itself is obvious, and it's no, it wasn't. They couldn't imagine a phone that could be usable without a keyboard until they tried it with their own hands. "Tap and pray" ? hahaha.

[lotharbot]

> "This is the kind of drivel that was shared around the internet at the time of the iPhone's release : http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone*

Consider the following headlines:

"Love your kids? Prove it by beating them."* http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=beat

"Green Peace blows, pave the rain forests!" http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=green_peace

"When is the last time a whale did anything for you?" http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=whales_suck

"My neighbor's kids were pissing me off, so I ate them." http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=i_ate_my_nei...

"I hope SOPA passes" http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=pass_sopa

He also has an entire website devoted to making fun of childrens' drawings.

Point being, Maddox should never, ever, ever, be taken even remotely seriously. Why criticize his "full keyboard" line and not his "I ate the neighbor's kids" article?

[Nicole060]

Because I'm not really criticizing Maddox himself, but the people who really took that page seriously and used it as part of all their anti-iPhone pseudo analysis during the great flamewars in 2007. You didn't really need to delve further into the site because I already knew about the kind of stuff it is.

Point is, most people in 2007 were criticizing the iPhone for not having a keyboard. That funny maddox link had an opportunity to be taken seriously. Make a google search for things posted in 2007 and you'll see by yourself what people who never handled an iPhone at the time thought of the idea of a phone 100% operated with a touchscreen. How many predicted the iPhone would fail way before anyone even had the opportunity to test one ? sounds like the iPhone and what it does wasn't that obvious.

[mattmcknight]

Many of us still use a slider phone with a keyboard. Yet those have been found infringing of Apple's illegitimate patents.

[bdcravens]

"illegitimate patents": perhaps, but like others have pointed out, it sounds like your beef shouldn't be with Apple, but with patent system. If Apple has illegitimate patents, I suspect some of the 24,000 patents Google acquired from Motorola Mobility are as well.

[mattmcknight]

I don't begrudge Apple the necessity of obtaining patents for things that shouldn't be patentable in our broken system- otherwise they would be the ones getting sued. However, the use of them to attack competitors that independently developed technology is what bothers me, whether it's Google, Apple, Microsoft, or a do-nothing patent troll that is doing the suing.

[batista]

"illegitimate" in some novel sense? Because the courts seem to think otherwise.

[sukuriant]

To be completely honest, I'm not really sure the courts finding Apple's patents non-obvious makes them any less illegitimate in some cases...

Some of them, sure, are legitimate; but not all of them. :-/