[eropple]

None of those have a touch based UI. Touch means finger touches.

This is dishonestly revisionist, given how common it was to see people thumbing through applications on Palm devices. That Palms came with styluses doesn't mean that they weren't touch-friendly in a lot of ways, and that should be taken into account.

[tomjakubowski]

Since I don't know, I thought I'd ask -- were Apple the first to create a multi-touch UI for a phone? That would seem to me to be the major innovation in touch UI if that's the case.

[eropple]

Apple was neither the first to create a multi-touch user interface (the first consumer multitouch device I know of was the Lemur, but I'm sure that was predated) nor the first to put it in a handheld PDA-ish device or a phone (LG beat the iPhone to market with the Prada--which, incidentally, also used very few physical buttons in favor of software buttons).

The entire argument in favor of Apple's patents is bullshit, and nirvana has a history of bad-faith fanboyism on the topic.

[corin_]

I could be wrong (?) but I think the first Prada was capacitive but not multi-touch.

[eropple]

You are correct - the Prada II was capacitive and multi-touch, not the first one. Mea culpa.

It doesn't really change much, though, as "make a [Surface|Lemur|Diamondpoint] handheld" is about as obvious a conceit as one can want.

[veemjeem]

Hm, I'd argue it's not that obvious, otherwise companies would just try to miniaturize everything hoping that there's a market for it. Companies won't typically make this leap because it's fairly costly and their product manager may not get a bonus that year if the product is a flop. It's only obvious to you because everything is obvious in hindsight.

[nirvana]

Whether something is obvious or not is irrelevant to this discussion.... the fact of the matter is, Apple created iOS, they didn't license it. The point I made was that Apple created that component, it didn't exist before. It was not off the shelf (as others were broadly claiming.)

Further, "obvious" is silly since nobody did it before them, and it is a post hoc ergo proctor hoc argument.

[nirvana]

>"Apple was neither the first to create a multi-touch user interface (the first consumer multitouch device I know of was the Lemur, but I'm sure that was predated) nor the first to put it in a handheld PDA-ish device or a phone (LG beat the iPhone to market with the Prada--which, incidentally, also used very few physical buttons in favor of software buttons)."

The LG Prada was single touch and it did not have a touch UI. Just a gimmick screen that would let you launch functions. IT wasn't even a smart phone, it was a feature phone.

>The entire argument in favor of Apple's patents is bullshit,

Its only "bullshit" that the facts of reality don't fit your claims.

>and nirvana has a history of bad-faith fanboyism on the topic.

I do have a history of citing facts that deflate ideological balloons in response to people like you who lie about history and call me names.

It really is a shame that you choose not to be honest. I mean, that guy was asking a legitimate question, and you lied to him!

[eropple]

> The LG Prada was single touch and it did not have a touch UI. Just a gimmick screen that would let you launch functions. IT wasn't even a smart phone, it was a feature phone.

On this you are correct. I was thinking of the Prada II, which was multitouch. My apologies. That does not necessarily make Apple's use of multitouch the novel concept you assert, however--to me, Surface, Lemur, etc. make shrinking it down to PDA size (whether or not a phone radio is in the device or not) an obvious progression.

The rest of your post is more of the curiously self-absorbed nattering we've been seeing throughout this thread, however. "Ideological balloons" is funny--I own three iOS devices and two Android ones, I have no ideological allegiance either way. I do, however, have a rather strong aversion to using the court system instead of competing and I find it ridiculous that something like the iOS "bounce" at the end of a list is a patentable effect. I am not impressed by Samsung's attempts to copy iOS, either; I find them to be lacking in creativity, but I do not find a lack of creativity to be grounds for rent-seeking and legal action.

I also have a strong aversion to your style of posting, however--your brand of obnoxiousness is something I came to HN to get away from--so I will not be replying to you again. I am sure you will enjoy the last word.

[nirvana]

Apple did not license iOS from someone else who invented multi-touch. I was rebutting the claim that they just assembled the iPhone from off the shelf parts, like legos.

You're so focused on your ideology that you're making an argument against patents (the context where obviousness would be relevant) in response to me saying Apple created iOS.

I find your need to characterize me, rather than address my point, and your dishonesty about the point I was even making, a form of obnoxiousness that I can do without, so feel free to ignore me. '

But don't pretend like I've done anything wrong here- you lied about me, and you characterized me and you called me names. Thus I must conclude you come to HN to be in the google distortion field, unpreturbed by anyone who would bring up pesky facts you don't like. And since I dared to make an argument you can't rebut, you feel fine insulting me.

You made the error, buddy, and you're blaming me for it. Shame on you.

[catch23]

I believe so, according to wikipedia, no other multi-touch phones existed before the iphone.

[mbq]

Precisely they used capacitive touch sensor (used on touchpads mostly at the time) instead of resistive standard used on PDAs; in practical terms this was a switch from notebook-like experience (which invites writing and checking small boxes) to magazine-like (smooth, glossy surface inviting sliding pages and large Nokia-like UI plus gestures to remove accuracy/finger-hiding problems). This way, multitouch rather just come in bundle with capacitive technology. BTW this is why I see the whole stuff as a mainly target group revolution -- simply way more people buy magazines than notebooks.