The irony was that there were already versions of Windows Mobile kicking around. Compaq iPAQ, for example. It ran Windows CE and required a stylus. To me, it seems that Apple managed to do to the phone what they'd already done to MP3 players. They weren't the first, and they didn't win the price/features war, but they had uniquely better UX on the device. The key differentiating features seem to me to have been:
- toughened glass screen
- stylus-free interaction due to use of capacitative screen
- multitouch
- real web browser (not WAP)
- (US) escaping the control of carriers; nobody remembers the "iTunes phone" the ROKR. Also indirectly killing carrier's attempts to do nickel-and-dime billing and therefore turning internet into a bulk commodity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300-page_iPhone_bill
- the marketing achievement of being a fashion device not a tech device (Tesla are explicitly copying this, to their advantage)
(again, I'm not claiming that they were the first to do any of these, but they did all of them well together)
The things that really mattered, apart from really well thought out and implemented multi-touch were: A true pre-emptive multitasking OS; Full 32bit application process memory model; multiprocessor support; OS level support for power management profiles for apps, based on experience from laptops and enabled by all the above; server class security, again enabled by the kernel features above. A full featured network stack and background services, again enabled by the first handful of features.
Bear in mind the Windows CE kernel, used until Windows mobile version 8 in 2012, was a single tasking OS with severe fundamental architectural deficiencies. That’s why Microsoft never allowed ‘ordinary’ developers access to write in C++. That was restricted to selected partners, because it gave full naked access to the platform and required specialist knowledge and skill.
Meanwhile Apple could let anyone develop on their platform in C, C++, Objective C, it’s all fine and just upload it to the App Store because it had workstation class process isolation.
Where did you get this idea the normal devs couldn't program Windows CE with C++. There are tons of open source C++ Windows CE apps from as far back as the 90s written in C++.
The Phone 7 App Store only allowed Silverlight, XNA and .NET applications, C++ apps were only allowed by close partners. Thats because CE didn't have a robust security framework or process isolation. This is fine on non-networked devices like the ones in the 90s you referred to because the worst that can happen is crashing the device, but once you have constant network access you need to be a lot more careful about allowing direct access at the system level. A badly behaved app could play havoc with the network, especially since the network stack on CE was pretty primitive with few safety features.
Also early CE devices were aimed at technical users that knew how to side-load apps and were much more tolerant of technical issues, but the later phones were aimed at ordinary consumers and so needed to be as reliable as possible. Hence the restriction to managed framework dev environments for general developers releasing to the App Stores on version 7 and below.
This is why Apple could open up their App Store to any developer with basic review, because the system was heavily locked down with robust system security, process isolation and networking models. Windows Phone didn't have that until version 8 in 2012, based on the NT kernel, and that's when the MS App Store started accepting apps developed in low level languages. That wan't a co-incidence or a capricious decision by Microsoft, but based on pragmatic considerations.
> stylus-free interaction due to use of capacitative screen
> multitouch
IMHO these two were the key standout killer features that made the iPhone a qualitatively different and better experience than every handset that had come before.
It went further; not only was the touchscreen better, and multitouch, but the UI was designed for fingers through and through. When I saw it I remember thinking, wow, finally a design team that cares about users at large, instead of showing off how they got X-windows to run on a phone.
It was comical how previous designs slapped a desktop UI on a phone and expected you to emulate a mouse with a tiny, easy-to-lose stylus.
I'm still expecting someone to well-actually us and point out an obscure device that did both first, but to me these were the spectacular features. Resistive touchscreen + stylus was and is awful (qv the other thread about how you hold a pen, like a ballpoint a stylus on resistive requires pressure and can be hard on the grip. It's also extremely loseable)
> I'm still expecting someone to well-actually us and point out an obscure device that did both first
There were devices before the iPhone with multi-touch, but that doesn’t matter. Being first isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be if you can’t market it to the world.
The first palm pilot was around 10 years before the iPhone, but despite the similarities we had flip phones, screen+keyboards, flipout keyboards, etc. It really took the iPhone nailing it to bring us the generation we have now of rectangle you can touch.
The use of glass as opposed to plastic was also critical in my opinion
> In other famous cases, Jobs’ exacting demands won out, to the eventual benefit of the final product. The screen of the phone was originally supposed to be composed of the same plastic that iPod screens were made of. But after a day in Jobs’ pocket, the prototype unit suffered from deep and permanent scratches thanks to his car keys. On a dime, Jobs switched the screen from plastic to Gorilla glass, even talking Corning into converting an entire factory in Harrisburg, Kentucky to produce the quantities Apple needed. This actually complicated things for the hardware team, since the multitouch sensors now had to be embedded in glass, and glass was an entirely different proposition from embedding in plastic.
I remember seeing the original iPhone for the first time. I was an ardent Apple hater and asked to play with it for a few minutes so I could uncover all of the dumb things Apple had done.
10 minutes later I needed to own one. My N95 immediately seemed completely awful in comparison.
I would add to this that in addition to differentiating features that would surface on a PRD, the quality of these features is critical.
Having capacitative multitouch is one thing, but having a quality touch screen is another. It is easy to lose sight of how much black-magic goes into making a usable capacitative muti-touch screen.
- toughened glass screen
- stylus-free interaction due to use of capacitative screen
- multitouch
- real web browser (not WAP)
- (US) escaping the control of carriers; nobody remembers the "iTunes phone" the ROKR. Also indirectly killing carrier's attempts to do nickel-and-dime billing and therefore turning internet into a bulk commodity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300-page_iPhone_bill
- the marketing achievement of being a fashion device not a tech device (Tesla are explicitly copying this, to their advantage)
(again, I'm not claiming that they were the first to do any of these, but they did all of them well together)