[gnaffle]

So Apple brought it to market at the exact point in time that it became viable. The other companies were "waiting" as you say, so why did they wait so long? Didn't they see that the technology was about to become viable?

I don't buy that theory. By the sales of the first iPhone, the market was obviously ready. Had it been "barely usable" it would have flopped completely.

Capacitive touch screens use the same technology as touchpads, and I haven't seen any proof that those screens were too expensive before 2006 and that technological advancements broght the price down after that.

What I do think is that Apple was willing to bet on touchscreens and place bulk orders that made the price come down, whereas other companies happy with the status quo and unwilling to redesign their mobile operating systems to fit a new technology.

[bornhuetter]

> why did they wait so long? Didn't they see that the technology was about to become viable?

As I've said ad nausium, the market wasn't ready for large capacitive touch screens. The technology was too expensive.

The market currently isn't ready for "wearable technology", like Project Glass. Every competent observer knows that some form of augmented reality/wearable technology is going to become important in the next few years, but it's currently shit.

If Google or some other company gets granted patents to the obvious design decisions that come with it, it will be a disaster for the consumer in the same way as granting "pinch to zoom on a mobile device" is a disaster for current consumers.

> What I do think is that Apple was willing to bet on touchscreens and place bulk orders that made the price come down, whereas other companies happy with the status quo and unwilling to redesign their mobile operating systems to fit a new technology.

They made a good bet, and they literally made billions of dollars from it. What they don't deserve is a monopoly on basic design ideas, like "pinch to zoom" and "rounded rectangles".

[gnaffle]

You've said ad nausium that the market wasn't ready, yet obviously the market was ready when the first iPhone launched since it became a big success.

By saying the market wasn't ready for capacitive touchscreens due to price, you're implying that this was the main thing keeping an iPhone-like device from reaching the market. Looking at the response from the competition after the iPhone launched, I don't think that's realistic at all.

I haven't seen any evidence that large capacitive touch screens were too expensive before 2007 and suddenly became cheap enough after that.

I also have seen zero evidence that any of the competitors were working on pure finger-touch based user interfaces before 2007. Which would be the case if the market was just waiting for capacitive touchscreen prices to come down.

I do agree that Apple shouldn't have a monopoly on touchscreen phones, and they don't, not even after this verdict. I don't like software patents either, but Samsung could have licensed the patents if they wanted to.