[bryanlarsen]

Keep in mind that most of those things that were "new and exciting" weren't new; it was just that most people hadn't seen them before, or not done well before.

For example, nobody used capacitive touch screens because they were horribly imprecise. The iPhone included some tricks to make them less precise, but mostly they just embraced the imprecision: all tap targets on the iPhone are thumb size.

Another thing that bothered me was Steve's description of the screen as the highest resolution screen available on a phone, when there were several gadgets available with much higher resolution screens, such as the Nokia N770.

My experience with the N770 definitely made me dismissive of the iPhone. The n770 made me well aware of the value of having a web browser in your pocket. But it had an 800 pixel screen at a time when that was the minimum width that many web sites designed for, along with a highly accurate stylus that you could use to accurately click on tiny links. There was no way the web was going to be usable on a 480 pixel screen without an accurate stylus. Which meant that every web site had to be rewritten to be iPhone friendly.

Who was going to buy an iPhone when virtually all websites were unusable? (remember at that time there were no apps). And who would rewrite their website to support an iPhone that nobody was buying? Classic chicken and egg problem.

Steve told us the answer: an incredibly polished product and incredible salesmanship.

[antimagic]

"Who was going to buy an iPhone when virtually all websites were unusable? (remember at that time there were no apps). And who would rewrite their website to support an iPhone that nobody was buying? "

Which of course was why MobileSafari and it's "pinch-to-zoom" functionality was revolutionary - it solved the chicken-and-egg problem by not requiring a site to be rewritten (although as experience has since demonstrated, you can certainly improve the user experience by optimising for mobile devices).

[thoughtsimple]

"nobody used capacitive touch screens because they were horribly imprecise. The iPhone included some tricks to make them less precise, but mostly they just embraced the imprecision: all tap targets on the iPhone are thumb size."

This is definitely not true today and I don't believe it was true when the iPhone was introduced either. I remember how remarkable it was that I could hit targets on unzoomed web pages accurately.

[Synaesthesia]

The iphone may have had a lower resolution screen, but the performance and responsiveness of the OS and browser were the real innovations. The power of Safari as well as the way you could zoom made it a game changer for surfing the web on your phone.

[bryanlarsen]

Blackberries from that era were very responsive. The web browser sucked, of course.