I was hoping for some key engineers or product managers. I had a similar peak into the iPod, a key stepping stone to the iPhone.
There was a time when digital music players like the Creative Nomad were gaining adoption, but people were still absorbing the shift to digital music.
I worked at RealNetworks/Rhapsody music and there was a mysterious meeting where a guy pitched what would eventually come to market as the iPod. The deal didn't go through and he was latter employed by Apple.
I understand that sometimes inventions will be invented nearly simultaneously by several distinct groups... and Apple may have already had a prototype device for years in their labs waiting for the BOM to hit the right size, price, and capabilities... But who were these visionaries that Apple organized, packaged their visions, and helped delivered their wares?
Apple does an amazing job of marketing their myths and we've got the well known brands of Woz, Jobs, Ive... It's hard to pierce that veil.
It's a hard problem to solve. Currently, I still haven't found product market fit yet - with TheyMadeThat's most apparent weakness being the lack of data, but I still can't fully let go because making people aware of who made their stuff matters. People know it's a problem and they like the idea of solving it. Unfortunately, people do not love my solution. Not enough people loved other higher profile solutions like Makerbase from Anil Dash and Gina Trapani either. I don't know to fix it.
Interesting features aside from associating people with contributing to the "iPhones" of the world:
* Seeing the relationships between different things i.e.
-- evolution (predecessors/successors),
For the ipod, I don't consider the device to be the invention.
There were many music players around at the time.
The invention was itunes -- an easy way to buy music. And that invention required cutting deals with all the music studios to put their catalog online.
That was new.
Of course it had to link up with a nice ecosystem, sound, software etc.
I expect better from Scientific American, yes technology these days stands on the shoulders of many smaller innovations, but it is the sum of all these small components and the software that makes a tech product innovative.
Also, the article refers to lithium-ion/lithium polymer batteries as lithium batteries. This is wrong, as lithium batteries are what you call primary cells with lithium anodes (e.g. button cells), not secondary cells like are used in a cellphone.
I was searching through the comments for this one. 100%. I would even go further and say that an invention is more than the sum of the parts. There is a specific mixture that makes something cohesive and ring true. Early PDAs had versions of many of these technologies in various combinations. But Apple got it right as a product. The devil is, as they say, in the details.
It's distressing that Scientific American's editors think pointing out that the iPhone was built of extant technologies is relevant, especially with respect to the topic of invention.
Along the same lines, they're talking about the touch-screen as if that's what they were credited for. There were lots of okay touch-screens widespread before; the iPhone had afaik the first good quality widely available multi-touch screen. There's a classic TED talk from 2004 where a guy introduces the technology and it seemed so amazing, the iPhones made direct use of that. (Albeit not being as amazing as the 2004 demo!)
The article came across to me like an attempt to talk up British inventions (and claim precedence) by the author, who is also British. It read like some Wikipedia technology articles which also have this bias.
Innovation happens in small steps, building on work of others and adding a few new things and experiences. The iPhone is no different but this article is not really worth the read.
I'm surprised that the premise that the iPhone is an "invention" is so quickly accepted. It wasn't like nobody was making any similar devices, and then this new idea came along. I know that invention can be as simple as gluing two existing things together, but the meaningful aspect has to be that there is an original idea there.
No doubt it popularised a lot of existing technology, and arguably combined some of that technology in a way that hadn't been done before. All the same, that reasoning could apply to the second version of the iPhone. Was that an "invention" too?
I followed PDAs pretty closely back then, and I'm unaware of any device where the OS was built around multi-touch, like the iPhone.[1] The iPhone was one of the few devices back then to render the "real web" and being able to swipe and pinch to navigate pages was a game-changer on the order of the first mouse-based UIs. It dramatically changes how much content you can easily access on a small screen (which is why even devices with styluses today have multi-touch screens to facilitate scroll/zoom). It also improves the quality of the on-screen keyboard, enabling you to ditch the physical one (or reliance on something like Graffiti).
For practical application, the one that invented it is the one that first offered it to me for sale. Kind of like battery technology, as the industry iterates over various chemistries. Yeah, yeah, your new tech is going to blow storage wide open...just like the last folks whose names I now forget. But until I can buy one for my phone, my RV house battery, or a pack for my electric car, you might as well have invented unicorns.
Who invented the car? We had engines, we had wheels, we had drive trains. But Benz was the first to glue them all together into a mode of transportation. But wait, Copeland put a steam engine on a bicycle two years before Benz got his patent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeland_steam_bicycle). And, frankly, all Benz did was glue an engine to an early tricycle design. So "invented" sometimes strikes me as not the best word to describe "who invented...?"
That definition of invention as marketed product is so demotivating to anyone who would put in the decades of personal focus and study necessary to advance a particular area of engineering or science.
I had a Windows phone. The UI sucked, of course, but they all did because of the tiny form factor. They had to, right? Then my buddy and I went to lunch one day, and he showed me his new "I-phone".
The heavens opened up and the truth was shown to me. I immediately realized, they didn't have to suck, after all. What a revelation.
Windows phone or Windows mobile? I agree that Windows mobile was in a different class to the iPhone, but I disagree that the UI of Windows phone sucked. I think parts are/were better than iPhones'.
The real invention is taking technology and packaging it in a human way that takes a baby seconds to learn. I didn’t have to teach my one year old how to swipe photos.
Touch screens existed and confounded people for decades. Just watch the average person use a touch screen ATM. Still not great.
It all seems so obvious in retrospect because iPhones have defined so much of how everything works now.
The original iPhone was a product no one else had the vision or balls to build.
I hear people argue that someone would have invented it without Apple, but my counter-argument is that it would have still had a hardware keyboard tucked away, whoever built it wouldn't know how to market it, it would have been just one among dozens of devices at the carrier's stores, and it would have vanished after a few months of languishing there.
Apple moved the world to make it succeed. No one else would have.
This is a silly article. Most inventions come about when a person or group of people recognize an opportunity based on many things that are already known, or exist. The original iPhone of course relied on touch-screens, feasible batteries, wifi chips and a many, many other existing technologies. But remember that, at the time of its design, mobile phones all used keypads: either the standard telephone type, or the full (but small) keyboard of the Blackberry. Apple's big innovations (among many) were to eliminate the keypad, and to embed a full-fledged OS on a small device. The lack of keyboard was a huge risk, and it was mocked at the time. History proved Apple was right. Steve Jobs (or at least his team, with his input) did indeed invent the iPhone.
Maybe Im in the minority here, but I never attributed credit to Steve Jobs as the "inventor" of any of apples products. I saw him akin to a music producer. The team builds, and he guides their efforts according to his vision. This is very different than sitting down and "inventing" anything.
Lame analysis. The iPhone wasn't great because it had a good touchscreen, battery and the web. I had "smart phones" before that with those. The real innovation was the software UI, pinch zoom and wall of all icons with high resolution pixels.
The article doesn't argue that the iphone was great because any of those things.
The article is arguing that technology is iterative, and that great inventions are often built on many other great inventions.
The article is focusing on the iphone as an example of breakthrough technology.. but the question implied by the article is whether or not it's great because of the inventors ability to build on a larger than average amount of previous work.. and ends with the conclusion that greater freedom of information allows for breakthroughs, not "genius" lone-wolf inventors.
It wasn't that high resolution. The iPhone 1.0 had a 320x240 screen. Pinch zoom was Fingerworks around 1999 (albeit Fingerworks was then acquired by Apple in 2005).
This article ties well to the excellent book "The Entrepreneurial State" by Mariana Mazzucato.
Apple did an excellent job of bringing together a lot of existing technology into a viable consumer product, but it is still important to note that much of that tech was powered by state-funded initiatives, instead of Silicon Valley, VC-funded projects.
I find it interesting that I know more about the team that developed the Mac in the early 1980s than I know about the iPhone team.
The iPhone was a watershed moment in tech that propelled Apple to be a trillion dollar company, yet the iPhone team is obscure to me. The Mac team has had how many books and articles about them?
You can also try my user-editable site (https://theymadethat.com/things/k4z/iphone) where I aim for the same goal but with a different approach. The iPhone entry still needs a lot of work.
[+] [-] ozten|7 years ago|reply
There was a time when digital music players like the Creative Nomad were gaining adoption, but people were still absorbing the shift to digital music.
I worked at RealNetworks/Rhapsody music and there was a mysterious meeting where a guy pitched what would eventually come to market as the iPod. The deal didn't go through and he was latter employed by Apple.
I understand that sometimes inventions will be invented nearly simultaneously by several distinct groups... and Apple may have already had a prototype device for years in their labs waiting for the BOM to hit the right size, price, and capabilities... But who were these visionaries that Apple organized, packaged their visions, and helped delivered their wares?
Apple does an amazing job of marketing their myths and we've got the well known brands of Woz, Jobs, Ive... It's hard to pierce that veil.
[+] [-] chaostheory|7 years ago|reply
It's a hard problem to solve. Currently, I still haven't found product market fit yet - with TheyMadeThat's most apparent weakness being the lack of data, but I still can't fully let go because making people aware of who made their stuff matters. People know it's a problem and they like the idea of solving it. Unfortunately, people do not love my solution. Not enough people loved other higher profile solutions like Makerbase from Anil Dash and Gina Trapani either. I don't know to fix it.
Interesting features aside from associating people with contributing to the "iPhones" of the world:
* Seeing the relationships between different things i.e. -- evolution (predecessors/successors),
-- variations (https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh/show_ver...),
-- parts (https://theymadethat.com/things/l1t/reddit/show_parts#focus_...)
* Who used what as tools
Feedback is welcome. Feel free to not be nice. It tends to be the most useful feedback.
Currently I'm using it to build a Ycombinator Census
[+] [-] startupdiscuss|7 years ago|reply
There were many music players around at the time.
The invention was itunes -- an easy way to buy music. And that invention required cutting deals with all the music studios to put their catalog online.
That was new.
Of course it had to link up with a nice ecosystem, sound, software etc.
[+] [-] starky|7 years ago|reply
Also, the article refers to lithium-ion/lithium polymer batteries as lithium batteries. This is wrong, as lithium batteries are what you call primary cells with lithium anodes (e.g. button cells), not secondary cells like are used in a cellphone.
[+] [-] devilshaircut|7 years ago|reply
It's distressing that Scientific American's editors think pointing out that the iPhone was built of extant technologies is relevant, especially with respect to the topic of invention.
[+] [-] jgtrosh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scabarott|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaostheory|7 years ago|reply
I'm still lacking a ton of data... but anyone is able to capture that history now: https://theymadethat.com/things/svj/taskforce/show_parts
It's not limited to just software
[+] [-] kerng|7 years ago|reply
Innovation happens in small steps, building on work of others and adding a few new things and experiences. The iPhone is no different but this article is not really worth the read.
[+] [-] Y_Y|7 years ago|reply
No doubt it popularised a lot of existing technology, and arguably combined some of that technology in a way that hadn't been done before. All the same, that reasoning could apply to the second version of the iPhone. Was that an "invention" too?
[+] [-] rayiner|7 years ago|reply
[1] Apple didn't invent multi-touch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t35HXAjNW6s. I believe it was the first to build a mobile UI entirely around it.
[+] [-] mikestew|7 years ago|reply
For practical application, the one that invented it is the one that first offered it to me for sale. Kind of like battery technology, as the industry iterates over various chemistries. Yeah, yeah, your new tech is going to blow storage wide open...just like the last folks whose names I now forget. But until I can buy one for my phone, my RV house battery, or a pack for my electric car, you might as well have invented unicorns.
Who invented the car? We had engines, we had wheels, we had drive trains. But Benz was the first to glue them all together into a mode of transportation. But wait, Copeland put a steam engine on a bicycle two years before Benz got his patent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeland_steam_bicycle). And, frankly, all Benz did was glue an engine to an early tricycle design. So "invented" sometimes strikes me as not the best word to describe "who invented...?"
[+] [-] ponow|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CapitalistCartr|7 years ago|reply
The heavens opened up and the truth was shown to me. I immediately realized, they didn't have to suck, after all. What a revelation.
[+] [-] usermac|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmarlow|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mailslot|7 years ago|reply
Touch screens existed and confounded people for decades. Just watch the average person use a touch screen ATM. Still not great.
It all seems so obvious in retrospect because iPhones have defined so much of how everything works now.
The original iPhone was a product no one else had the vision or balls to build.
[+] [-] macintux|7 years ago|reply
Apple moved the world to make it succeed. No one else would have.
[+] [-] cheeko1234|7 years ago|reply
http://techland.time.com/2013/01/11/a-story-about-steve-jobs...
[+] [-] herodotus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] S_A_P|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregw2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rando444|7 years ago|reply
The article is arguing that technology is iterative, and that great inventions are often built on many other great inventions.
The article is focusing on the iphone as an example of breakthrough technology.. but the question implied by the article is whether or not it's great because of the inventors ability to build on a larger than average amount of previous work.. and ends with the conclusion that greater freedom of information allows for breakthroughs, not "genius" lone-wolf inventors.
[+] [-] monocasa|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jri93jf72|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pmiri|7 years ago|reply
Apple did an excellent job of bringing together a lot of existing technology into a viable consumer product, but it is still important to note that much of that tech was powered by state-funded initiatives, instead of Silicon Valley, VC-funded projects.
[+] [-] russellbeattie|7 years ago|reply
The iPhone was a watershed moment in tech that propelled Apple to be a trillion dollar company, yet the iPhone team is obscure to me. The Mac team has had how many books and articles about them?
[+] [-] chaostheory|7 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/One-Device-Secret-History-iPhone/dp/0...
It just came out a year ago.
You can also try my user-editable site (https://theymadethat.com/things/k4z/iphone) where I aim for the same goal but with a different approach. The iPhone entry still needs a lot of work.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] CodeSheikh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Simon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ooqq|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xichu|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] startupdiscuss|7 years ago|reply
- convincing mobile providers to provide data plans
- Wrapping up the price of the phone in the data plan (i.e. providing financing)
- distribution with their own stores
- eventually the app store
- the itunes app also had to convince music studios to put their catalog online and price them uniformly
[+] [-] trevyn|7 years ago|reply