for the Google Android team, the iPhone was a kick in the stomach. "What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties," DeSalvo said. "It's just one of those things that are obvious when you see it."
Now to be fair, the iPhone didn't catch just the Android folks off-guard; it caught everyone off-guard.
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Everyone was utterly shocked. RIM (Blackberry) was even in denial the day after the iPhone was announced with all-hands meets claiming all manner of weird things about iPhone: It couldn't do what they were demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor; it must have terrible battery life, etc. Imagine their surprise when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it. It was ridiculous, it was brilliant.
The iPhone did many amazing things, but what stands out in my mind was how it proved that these assumptions were flat-out wrong beyond any reasonable doubt. Apple pretty gave everyone the finger and said, “Fsck you guys we can build your distant impossible future today.”
I really don’t think you’re giving Apple enough credit here. They did something amazing that many very prominent people in the industry thought was either impossible or at least a decade away, and they did it in a disgustingly short time frame.
sauce1, sauce2
P.S. Was just reading the above and thought it might be interesting to Android / iOS fans. I remember lots of debates (in mobile wars forum) about who innovated first and who copied whom in the mobile industry. So I thought the above might put some of those debates to rest.
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