comment by thenewgreen

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thenewgreen · 4784 days ago · link · · parent · post: Apple granted a patent for 'slide to unlock'.

The video in the link of Jobs introducing the first iPhone is a really great watch. He says, "we are introducing 3 new revolutionary items". He then names them:

1. a Touch Ipod

2. Safari

3. A revolutionary phone

He then goes on to say they are all one thing, the iPhone. It's easy to take this for granted now but it really was a revolutionary interface.

markup tips · 0

mk · 4784 days ago · link ·

Yeah, the whole package, except that many of the components like this swipe and lock weren't revolutionary.

+discuss+discuss

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thenewgreen · 4784 days ago · link ·

What makes the device revolutionary is that all of these components were in one place. The individual components may not have been "revolutionary", but having the idea and taking the initiative to put them all in one place was.

I'm not arguing on behalf of the patents validity, I was just pointing out how amazing iPhones were and are. They were game-changers.

+discuss+discuss

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eks · 4784 days ago · link ·

I'm sorry, but I disagree with "revolutionary". I think it was pretty obvious. It just needed someone with money and some balls to take the "risk" to make the "obvious" interface to mass market a product with those features. Blackbeeries have been around since 1999, the "telephone as a communication device" was already something in demand. Just put some fancy touch interface instead of reducing the screen size for keys, an obvious solution for a device so small such as a telephone, and voila.

All this "destroy the Android" babble from late Jobs is quite infuriating, since the iPhone itself was built on ideas already used on established products (Palm, Blackberries and Pocket PC), innovations which Jobs himself mentions on that 2007 iPhone presentation. Just adding a touch screen to it is not revolutionary, Apple was just "the first" to do it. The Macintosh in 1984 was revolutionary.

The biggest problem is that the cult of Apple allows them to be considered an almost "legitimate patent troll" and get away with it.

+discuss+discuss

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thenewgreen · 4784 days ago · link ·

"revolutionary" is the wrong word (it almost always is though) and I should know better. But to say that it was "pretty obvious" is wrong too. Apple took existing technology and applications, made them function together in a cohesive, user friendly way and then managed to package them in a proprietary setting in which the consumer is so taken with the ease of use, they don't mind the proprietary restrictions. -This is brilliant. If it were "pretty obvious" than the other phone companies and manufacturers would have done it. It's easy to call things easy in hindsight.

As I mentioned, I'm not defending the "patent troll" behavior, -at all. But to dismiss the iPhone as a "game changer" is wrong imo.

+discuss+discuss

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eks · 4784 days ago · link ·

Personally, I will still dismiss the iPhone as game changer. Historically it will go down as game changer because of the huge following it has, but I still think was "pretty obvious" when all they did was "assemble" different available technologies into a single product. The iPad idea, the tablet, for example, was around already for a long time before the iPad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_personal_computer

All they did was merge all these different technologies into a single, barely affordable, phone. And market it really really really well.

I agree the iPhone is easier to use than a Blackberry. But it's not "revolutionary easier". Just "a bit easier", not enough to grant it a game changer status. (For me, at least). :)

+discuss+discuss

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thenewgreen · 4784 days ago · link ·

It's definitely a matter of opinion. I have an iPhone and a blackberry that I use every day. The blackberry is a company issued phone and the iPhone my personal phone. I end up giving most of my business contacts my personal phone number so I don't have to carry the blackberry with me. In my opinion it just sucks in comparison. That said, it's not the best blackberry they offer. Perhaps other models are more user friendly. The iPhone is essentially a small iPad. The blackberry is a phone with some internet and texting capabilities.