Small oversight by the author

I don’t agree that sophistication of apps wasn’t there at that stage, seriously. In some ways, the apps we use on mobile devices have become simpler, more basic, as the intelligence moves from the device into the cloud. You could run pocket quake back then! And full paint programs, office editors, etc. And as far as the browser being clunky – well, desktop browsers were still pretty clunky at that stage too, if you remember.

I’m not saying there wasn’t a qualitative difference in the way Apple exposed a touch interface in 2007 – there was, partly because traditions like the grab-hand gesture to pan around a document, which were second-nature in the Apple ecosystem, made touch-to-scroll an obvious idea (you rarely saw this in Windows, it was always scroll bars or scroll wheel). But also because technology like capacitive touchscreens had finally come of age, allowing for a more finger-friendly interface (those of us who’d been using our fingernails as a stylus for years welcomed this). But the other stuff had already been done, and much of it quite some time before. I think the phrase “revolutionary” has been co-opted by Apple marketing on this, and it’s been repeated so often the whole world has started to buy in to the legend.

Also, you’re right that there were PDAs and other handheld devices before the iPhone. The problem, again, is that they were not good. They did not run sophisticated apps (in comparison to what we see today), the browsers were clunky, and the devices were an eyesore.

To say that Apple didn’t revolutionize mobile in 2007 is insane. Apple did not invent the category of smartphone or tablet, but they did revolutionize it. Having an idea is great, but being able to actually do it matters. As I said in the article, Bill Gates had been droning on and on about tablet computers far before Jobs understood the vision, but Gates and co. were never able to properly implement that vision.

Whoever said trolls are good for nothing?

In ways its great, seeing how everything in one ecosystem works together. But at the same time, more and more I’m starting to see services that I might like, but simply can’t use because I’d have to have an iphone. It’s like when you buy a phone, and you have to re-set up the home screen and personalize it and everything. Well nowadays, if you switch from google to apple–hell, it could almost take weeks before you get all of your old services transferred to new apps/programs with similar functionality in the new ecosystem.