Genuine question.

I know they were the scrappy startup doing different cool things. But, what are the most major innovative things that they introduced, improved or just implemented that either revolutionized, improved or spurred change?

I am aware of the possibility of both fanboys and haters just duking it out below. But there’s always that one guy who has a fkn well-formatted paragraph of gold. I await that guy.

    • PeachMan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It literally created the modern smartphone market. The Palm Pilots and Blackberries of the day couldn’t compare: the iPhone had a FULL BROWSER. It was insane. The team developing Android saw the iPhone and had a real “holy shit” moment, they had to go back to the drawing board and completely start over in order to compete.

      • gdog05@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Full browser might be an overstatement. It was still a web full of Flash at that time. And it caused a pretty major limitation on the browser. If there wasn’t an app available, you were often SOL. I do think it sped up the demise of Flash on the web considerably.

        • PeachMan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Sure, a browser minus Flash, but it was still a real browser. Most of the web functioned without Flash. And none of the competition even had anything close. It was such a revolutionary product that the iPhone didn’t even HAVE competition until Android got its shit together, which took a couple years.

    • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In what aspect? There were mobile devices with installable applications. And Samsung already had a phone with that form factor.

      • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        And who bought them before iPhone came out? There were tablets before the iPad. Nobody bought them either.

        • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          A lot of people. If you went with idea they sold previously business oriented devices to regular users, I’d give you that. But it’s not like Apple invented that format or form. I advise everyone watch documentary on Springboard, which was really really ahead of its time. When everyone was messing around with dumb phones, Springboard was working on unified device with camera built-in, connectivity, etc. In fact they were too early with their product, ten years before first iPhone. More to the point, Jobs visited Springboard, said their product was shit, and went on to produce the exact same device with better polish, which was a dick move in my opinion, but that’s business. But saying Apple invented smartphones or refined them. No. It’s an iterative process like everything else.

          • toofpic@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This is the phone I had as my own and sold to my customers. It came out a year before iPhone among many others. It was a mature product. It was quite shitty in terms of performance, but it had all connectivity and gps stuff, and many apps to work with it all.
            Windows’ shitty interface could be improved by cool touch-oriented interfaces (Spb Mobile Shell being one of them), there were 3rd party keyboard apps as well. https://m.gsmarena.com/htc_p3600-1694.php

          • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Apple doesnt create products. Apple creates markets. Nobody bought modern phones before the iPhone. They existed, nobody bought them. Nobody bought tablets before the iPad. They existed, nobody bought them. Nobody bought mp3 players before the iPod. They existed, nobody bought them. Everyone bought them after, and not just from Apple.

            • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You seriously need to get out of that bubble. If product exists, that means there’s a market demand for it. By your own statement world is filled with infinitely rich companies which throw R&D resources on new products and constantly flopping and not turning profit, which is really not the case. People certainly bought MP3 players and tablets before Apple made their own version. iPod was popular but unattainable to most of the countries with poor economy and it’s not like people didn’t listen to music until Apple came along to save us all.

              • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                What bubble? The iPod was an enormous cultural phenomenom that brought mp3 players into the mainstream. Nobody’s ever heard of the saehan mpman, even though it predated the iPod for years, because it was bought by a few thousand early adopters and made no impact at all.

                This guy hates apple so much he’s trying to convince me they’re not financially successful lmao

                • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  What your arguments probe is that Apple had a better marketing team and brand recognition (due to iMac) than the manufacturers who were there before.

                  Yeah, Apple was financially successful, but not due to innovation. Just good marketing.

                  • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    So you’re strawmanning me, basically. I said they created a market. I said that because it’s true. I never said a damn thing about how they created the market, in fact I went to great lengths to point out that all of these devices existed before apple created theirs. You’re so desperate to rant about fanboys that you inserted opinions into my post that weren’t there.

                    Here’s the deal, bro. Fanboys and haters are equally annoying. I can’t imagine how empty your life must be to have such strong opinions about a fucking phone.

    • toofpic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Nope, there was a lot of Windows Mobile smartphones before iPhones and Androud devices. WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, phone, thousands of apps, “full browser” (I don’t know what a commenter meant by that, but I could use internet normally)
      When iPhone appeared, it was sooo limited. A couple of my regular customers (I was selling qtek/htc smartphones) bought them, but then came back to me: “uhhh, this thing doesn’t allow attachments in emails”, “uhhh, do you have normal maps app for that? can’t drive with that”