Posted on 12/15/2017 8:51:03 AM PST by COBOL2Java
I agree that the picture has an element of truth with many intentional omissions. Obviously the commercial success of the original iPhone influenced the appearance of its competitors. This is what happens with clothes, phones, computers, cars, houses, and just about everything else in the market place.
I disagree that those who post variations of this photo all have a sense of humor. No, they take it pretty seriously in many cases.
Personally I will continue to consider it to be "poking fun" at the competitors whose designs were influenced by the iPhone's, and will let any folks who do take it seriously speak for themselves.
First of all, that phone is NOT a rectangular phone, nor does it have "rounded corners" which Apple never claimed were "stolen from them," but was a propaganda claim from Samsung. The "rounded corners" meme is merely the language taken from the REQUIRED LEGAL description in the iPhone DESIGN PATENT of which the US SUPREME COURT has upheld Samsung’s illegal infringement. You do not grasp what a Design Patent is. Too bad for your weak argument.
Secondly, that phone has rounded ends, not rounded corners, because it is by no means a rectangle, and used a primitive resistance touch screen that required a stylus to use to select anything accurately. Your characterization of the invention of the capacitance transparent multitouch screen that required no stylus for input as a mere incremental improvement is ridiculous on its face. Apple was granted and holds the patents on those multitouch screens. . . Also too bad for your idiotic arguments.
As for the point of that graphic showing phones before and after the introduction of the iPhone, the point is NOT that there may have been rectangular phones before, but rather where are the non-iPhone look alike AFTER? They are very few and rare. Every maker started making iPhone look-alikes.
"The crazy array of hard buttons on the Mogul is this device's way of giving you quick access to some of Windows Mobile's many functions and of letting you move through the very stylus-centric interface without using a stylus. Once you master the buttons, a surprising number of tasks can be done with the Windows key, the scroll wheel, and the OK button, reducing the number of times you have to pull out your stylus."
They later say: "The Mogul makes a decent but not great phone." By the way, in a previous discussion you claimed that the Windows Mobile of pre iPhone had full internet desktop display. According to these reviews, not so: "For data, the Mogul, like all Windows Mobile Professional PDA phones, comes with mobile versions of Internet Explorer. . . " which is what I recall from that period.
Swormaker thank you for your latest post. It is cute that you remember that Apple's marketing team was already busy hyping some sort of prototype over six months before the first iPhone was actually released on June 29, 2007. The review that comes up on CNET for the PPC-6800 is dated June 17, 2007. Your contention here that HTC was somehow already copying an Apple prototype before it was actually even released and long before it was a commercial success is actually an acknowledgement that phones were already evolving toward an appearance similar to the soon to be released iPhone even before it was released.
As far as your meaningless comparison of specs go in other posts... none of them are relevant because the first iPhone was missing the one spec that actually did matter to serious users at the time... the first iPhone didn't have a 3G radio. It wouldn't do anything on the Internet if you were not connected to a wifi network. And it was missing many other important features as well, the first iPhone wouldn't even send SMS text messages not to mention text messages with pictures. It would only play music and video encoded specifically for the iPhone and there were severe limitations even on that.
Over the years the iPhone has evolved into an incredible device. And as I have said repeatedly here... Apple's marketing for the first iPhone was revolutionary. I can think of no other time in human history when so many have been convinced to pay so much for an electronic trinket that had so little actual functionality.
AS I have mentioned previously I tried out the first iPhone and concluded that it was a dog. Unfortunately I did not realize that Apple had assembled the greatest marketing team in history. If I had invested $600 in Apple instead of a first generation iPhone it would now be worth approximately $5000.
So in conclusion for those who have had difficulty following my wordy argument... the first iPhone had decent specs for the time period but compared to other devices already available it had poor functionality. No matter how wonderful Swordmaker claims that Apple's first stab at a multi-touch input system was, the first iPhone was still an overpriced, over spec-d electronic trinket. And no, despite Swordmaker's implications, it had no effect on phone styles until after it became a commercial success. Other phone manufacturer's stylists were already evolving in that same direction. It is ridiculous to imply that other companies were trying to copy the first iPhone six months before it was even released. Come on Swordmaker you should really take that back.
Numerous browsers were available for Windows Mobile phones at least as far back as 2005 when I first began using a phone with a Windows operating system. These browsers offered various features including viewing web pages written for computers and not just those designed for phones..
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system that deserves not to be forgotten. It was incredibly versatile and capable. And it was easy to learn if you knew how to use a Windows-based computer. It lacked an app store, but you could find basically anything you needed for it, much like you can with Windows. Plus, it had an incredible developer community at xda-developers that built all sorts of programs for and variations of it that could be easily loaded and offered even greater improvements.
My first smartphone was an HTC Touch Pro 2 running Windows Mobile. Probably the best physical keyboard ever made for a phone. And the software was just so versatile; I didn’t do 1/10th of what I could have done with it. That phone had a MicroSD slot, could easily tether over USB or Bluetooth out of the box, was recognized as a hard drive when plugged into Windows, and had a huge array of useful software already available to it since Windows Mobile had been around for a while. And it had a stylus. The resistive screen wasn’t as sensitive as the capacitive screens that the iPhone brought into vogue, but it was way more accurate and precise and I didn’t even need to have conductive contact with my body for the screen to work.
When Microsoft decided to deprecate Windows Mobile, we had no idea what they were going to do next. Then we got Window Phone 7, a complete change and an iPhone clone in nearly every respect, especially the locking down of the legendary Windows versatility that Windows Mobile had. I saw it, said “You’ve already lost, Microsoft” and set about resigning myself to finding a good Android phone while that whole mess was still sorting itself out in the early days of Android. Not until the Galaxy Note 2 came out did I go Android.
Windows Mobile probably needed modern guts to it, but if Microsoft had stuck with the same functionality concept, it might have had something to distinguish itself in the new smartphone world. It did the opposite, reinvented itself completely, and its new baby was stillborn.
My first Windows Mobile phone was a PPC-6700 from Sprint in 2005. My plan had unlimited data included and I used it for tethering to my laptop with a USB cable when I was at work. I had a Bluetooth GPS sending unit that worked with the phone as well. The amount of software available was impressive and most that I used was free. I eventually upgraded to a Touch Pro 2 which was a more capable phone.
When my best friend got the first iPhone in 2007 I found itthat had extremely limited functionality by comparison. No 3G connection for tethering made the phone seem basically worthless for my purposes.
Windows Mobile is an operating system with much potential. For those who were willing to learn its ins and outs could get a lot out of devices that were very limited compared to current devices. I also had a Windows Mobile stand alone GPS that worked very well.
But with the iPhone, programmers could develop endless unique APPS to entice users and solve problems. THAT was the real advantage.
For someone who has the moniker 2harddrive you seem to have little understanding of the state of phone development when the iPhone came out in 2007. I purchased my first Windows Mobile phone in 2005. By 2007 there were many thousands of “unique APPs” available for Windows Mobile devices and almost none for the iPhone. The iPhone App Store didn’t go online until July 0f 2018 a little more than a year after the iPhone was released.
Sorry, autocorrect error, Apple App store online July 2008...
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