Microsoft, similarly, initially dismissed the iPhone as a joke. It did not see that the future of computing was in mobile devices, not desktop and laptop machines running Windows.
I don’t think that’s fair. Microsoft did have a mobile OS before Apple. It’s just that they didn’t get the idea that very simply UI is better than a UI that’s accessed via a stylus along with a hardware keyboard. I think they also didn’t have the haptic feedback that you do get on iOS and Android when software buttons are pressed. It’s quite interesting that you can give user that clicks software button haptic feedback without them being aware that the phone in their hand vibrates when they press a button. There were a bunch of interesting ideas that were needed to get the concept to work.
There were a bunch of interesting ideas that were needed to get the concept to work.
Microsoft could have invented those, instead of Apple, if Microsoft invested the resources into mobile devices that Apple had. Instead, Microsoft treated the entire mobile device space as a sideshow, or an adjunct to desktop computing.
Meanwhile Apple, perhaps because of its success with the iPod, invested heavily in mobile device hardware engineering, mobile UI research, building relations with suppliers, and all the other necessary things to not just invent the iPhone, but manufacture it and sell it by the millions.
I don’t think that’s fair. Microsoft did have a mobile OS before Apple. It’s just that they didn’t get the idea that very simply UI is better than a UI that’s accessed via a stylus along with a hardware keyboard. I think they also didn’t have the haptic feedback that you do get on iOS and Android when software buttons are pressed. It’s quite interesting that you can give user that clicks software button haptic feedback without them being aware that the phone in their hand vibrates when they press a button. There were a bunch of interesting ideas that were needed to get the concept to work.
Microsoft could have invented those, instead of Apple, if Microsoft invested the resources into mobile devices that Apple had. Instead, Microsoft treated the entire mobile device space as a sideshow, or an adjunct to desktop computing.
Meanwhile Apple, perhaps because of its success with the iPod, invested heavily in mobile device hardware engineering, mobile UI research, building relations with suppliers, and all the other necessary things to not just invent the iPhone, but manufacture it and sell it by the millions.