Oh come on! I remember the iPaqs and those Sony's. Good as they were at the time, they were nothing like the iPhone in terms of user interface and usability.

Compared to the smartphones we have now, they were just incredibly fiddly to use.

I think you're kidding yourselves if you think the reason they weren't as successful as smartphones today are is down to marketing.

Hmmm....if the P800 was "nothing like the iPhone in terms of user interface and usability", why could the P800 allow the user to set its own homescreen wallpaper in 2002, while the iPhone could not, in 2007.

The P800 was also not fiddly to use. It could be operated with either a stylus or a finger, much like the Galaxy Note today.

The original iPhone itself was nothing special, it couldn't even do 3G, whereas Google were already testing 3G Android prototypes at the time of the iPhone's initial release. Marketing and Apple's brand image was a massive, massive factor in its success.

So on the one hand I would argue that the iPhone had a much more user friendly UI, that was a lot more intuitive and easy to use, not least due to the multi touch display.

And on the other you would argue that you could set a wallpaper on the P800.

Is this a wind up Zack?

Of course marketing was a factor, but I would completely disagree that the iPaqs and Sony's of that era were anything like the iPhone in terms of usability.

And you don't think Apple weren't also researching it.

If it was nothing special why was it so overwhelmingly well received both within the tech world and the general populous. Clearly Samsung were impressed they ditched their own designs and copied it - to which they have admitted.

Calico, I really don't think you have the knowledge to sustain a convincing argument. This is becoming more and more evident, particularly when you are faced with near unanimous disagreement from everyone else.

Have you ever come across a P800 or used one at all, a touch-based Symbian UI capable of advanced email, Outlook, opening Microsoft Office suite applications etc etc. I would say, relative to the time, the P800 was by far and away the more innovative device.

I suspect it's why it didn't take long for competitors to overtake the iPhone and eventually supersede it. In fact, it happened in less than 3 years. Why? Because the iPhone was never that advanced. Apple offset a lack in technology with marketing in a similar way to Nintendo.

It's worth noting that the P800 also supported very accurate handwriting recognition as well as the option for software or hardware input. Much more intuitive than a keyboard with a tiny spacebar and cramped keys, such as the one found in iOS7.

They didn't ditch anything. This device was debuted by Samsung at CeBiT 2006.

I had the p900, which came out a year or so later and I consider that to be my first smartphone, not the iPhone 3G that I got many years later.

Definitely. The P series were great devices. Glad to see someone who has had actual experience with technology. I consider my old P800 a smartphone as well.

Yes, I've already said that I remember the iPaqs and Sony's like the P800.

And no, I don't think there is "near unanimous disagreement from everyone else" that they were nowhere near the iPhone in terms user interface and usability.

You do understand that things like user interface and usability are not the same as things you can do, right?

Dunno about that.

4 (physical, rather than on-screen) buttons along the bottom for quick access to phone, contacts, internet and messaging, bunch of shortcut icons to app's on the screen.
Seems pretty similar to me.

Certainly Apple refined the idea, just as other companies have done since, but only a rabid iPhone fan would try to claim anything prior to the iPhone was "dross" or that the iPhone was some kind of quantum leap.

Personally, I've been using PDAs for almost as long as they've been around and I've seen the gradual adoption of them by more and more people over the last decade or so and I think it's fair to say we'd probably be almost exactly where we currently are regardless of whether Apple created the iPhone or not.

Can I add:
Innovation in 2012 was a slightly larger screen

lol

Innovative in the sense that it went into 'mass production'.

Now should mass production be denied to others?

I had an iPaq, P800 and P900. All good devices.

Apple had the advantage of a very nice multi-touch capacitive display on the iPhone, but those earlier devices were all very innovative, powerful and useful devices.

Apart from the new display, I can't think of much in the iPhone that wasn't already available.

I can't help wondering where we'd be if the same mindset was applied to the car industry.
Would there be only one manufacturer who was entitled to build cars with fuel-injection, another who was entitled to build cars with ABS and another who was entitled to build cars with electric headlights?

Or would we all be driving around in Fords because anything with a wheel at each corner fell under their intellectual property?

I don’t want usability and something easy to use. I want complexity and customisation. Give me a Unix workstation and a three button mouse to a Mac and a one button mouse.

Better still give me a command prompt.

Again, being able to do the same things is completely different to how easy and intuitive it is to do things.

Today's touch screens with multi touch are a completely different, and for most people better, experience than fiddling with a stylus.

The Nissan Micra would be deemed too darned expensive for us mere mortals.

So we would have to make do with a BMW Mini.

From Great Innovator to Grand Inquisitor

I came across this article, looks relevant

Tech Investors Lobby Congress: Down With Patent Trolls.

Its a fair point, although the jist is really about patent trolls, rather than Apple or Samsung.

i.e. companies who don't actually ever manufacture anything. Whose sole purpose is to exist as an entity that registers patents, and then sues if any company ever actually manufactures anything.

Uhuh.

New stuff turns out to be an improvement on old stuff. Big shocker.

Seems kinda futile to try and keep discussing the subject since it's the easiest thing in the world for you to keep denying that anything else was comparable.

Personally, I know my iPaq was was a perfectly functional PDA, camera and phone all in one and it used an icon-based GUI and it was on sale before anything made by Apple or Samsung and as far as I'm concerned all these devices have been on a mutually derivative evolution ever since.

It you believe otherwise, good luck to you.

Sounds like a bit of a bait and switch there.

I never said the iPaq wasn't functional.

What I did say was that the user experience with today's multi touch smartphones is a huge improvement over devices like the iPaq.

As you say, new stuff does turn out to be better than old stuff. But your original argument was that the new stuff wasn't really an improvement over the old stuff.

No, it's just that you've spent several hours trying to refute my response to a post which suggested that every smartphone before the iPhone was "dross".

I apologise for using the word dross, as I did not mean to imply that phones prior to the iPhone did not show innovation.

However, put the iPhone up against any phone that existed on the market and to then claim the iPhone did not show massive innovation is just plan wrong. The interest wasn't created because of apples marketing, it was because nobody had ever seen anything link it before.

I wouldn't have said they were "dross". I was disagreeing with your suggestion that there was nothing particularly new, different or innovative in the iPhone.

And I haven't spent several hours trying to do anything - more like minutes.

The only new thing about the iPhone was the capacitive multi-touch display.

Everything else was done before, especially the design and in fact the iPhone was missing features upon its initial release.