The greatest invention of all time? What about money? The wheel? Antibiotics?

aTmAg said:

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The greatest invention of all time? What about money? The wheel? Antibiotics?

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Maybe "the greatest thing since sliced bread" (invented in 1928), then?

aTmAg said:

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The greatest invention of all time? What about money? The wheel? Antibiotics?

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Beer...

The answer is always beer.

How Beer Saved the World

MGS said:

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ChipFTAC01 said:

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How can someone have a graphic about the evolution of the pre-iphone smartphone and leave off blackberries?

I still miss my blackberries.

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That and I don't see a single Nokia smartphone in that picture when they had 75% of the smartphone market in 2007.

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Nokia 9300i - with wifi so you can use it without counting towards your data plan limit! The only thing it was lacking was GPS.

aTmAg said:

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The greatest invention of all time? What about money? The wheel? Antibiotics?

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Norman must admit his life got easier when they invented the wheel

You have to admit the smartphone really impacted the way people do things ... for better AND worse.

The Fife said:

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MGS said:

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ChipFTAC01 said:

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How can someone have a graphic about the evolution of the pre-iphone smartphone and leave off blackberries?

I still miss my blackberries.

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That and I don't see a single Nokia smartphone in that picture when they had 75% of the smartphone market in 2007.

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Nokia 9300i - with wifi so you can use it without counting towards your data plan limit! The only thing it was lacking was GPS.

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What was the size of the smartphone market back in 2007 before the iPhone? Was it even 10% of what it currently is?

The iPhone might not have been the first in many technical ways, but it was the first to have the needed features combined with an approachable interface that had mass market appeal.

Morgan Stanley issued us these HP iPaq (can't remember the model number) things and everybody hated them. It was the first smartphone I ever had, had a razor flip phone prior to that. The iPhone was a salvation to us all up here.

NormanAg said:

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Would there even BE an android phone if the iPhone hadn't come first? As I posted - you have to admit the iPhone was revolutionary.

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Rise of the Android came more because Apple had the iPhone exclusive to AT&T for the first few years. Verizon and Sprint and the other carriers were pissed, and that lead to those awful touch screen Blackberries, Androids, and all the other smartphone brands.

Heck, iPhone use wasn't even really widespread until 2010 or 2011. I graduated A&M in 2011 and don't recall seeing a lot of people with iPhones until maybe senior year

That and Apple was stupid enough to have Schmidt on their Board of directors. He stole their ideas and it was Apple's fault.

NormanAg said:

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Would there even BE an android phone if the iPhone hadn't come first? As I posted - you have to admit the iPhone was revolutionary.

But "revolutions" like that only happen once - everything that comes after it is derivative. No smart phone vendor - including Apple - should still be using the term "revolutionary" IMO.

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Considering the android os was being developed as early as 2004, I'd say it would have happened with or without the iPhone

tamusc said:

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The Fife said:

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Nokia 9300i - with wifi so you can use it without counting towards your data plan limit! The only thing it was lacking was GPS.

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What was the size of the smartphone market back in 2007 before the iPhone? Was it even 10% of what it currently is?

The iPhone might not have been the first in many technical ways, but it was the first to have the needed features combined with an approachable interface that had mass market appeal.

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I'll give you that (FWIW I bought this in 06). The iphone was a whole lot more user friendly than this. This Nokia really only worked with pages that were mobile friendly or pretty plain to begin with, regular ones took ages to render or came out pretty mangled. On top of it iphones were just a hell of a lot faster and apps a lot easier to load things on to.

Nokia really didn't get their act together with smartphones until the N95 which still came out shortly before the iPhone did, but cost a good $200 more and wasn't as good. The ones I had were always bought unlocked which still seems to be a pretty uncommon way of buying them in this country anyway, but even with carrier support there's no question that the iPhone would have won out.

Ag03 CQE said:

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ldelriego said:

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None of the devices on the top row of that graphic are smartphones.

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Neither is the Tungsten on the bottom row. That's a terrible graphic.

I had an iPhone and now have a Note. Having used both, the android based system has more doodads and crap to modify but there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that ios is superior in usability, stability, backup capability, restoration capability, and probably other things I am glossing over. The backup and restore functionality on apple devices and their ability to sync and communicate as an ecosystem is almost superior in every way to android. In fact, I am being generous by even putting the two in the same league.

Apple....nailed it.

I love watching the press conference. It's crazy they knew how big it would be.

I didn't work on it from the provider side, but sat near a lot that did. Remember hearing Steve Jobs on conference calls in passing.

Just this week, I heard that since it was a Non-disclosure product before launch, our top executives rented an apartment to work on it in the evenings and weekends without drawing attention to a big, new project; this was all before it was announced who the initial service provider would be.

LBM-Aggie-2014 said:

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Crap, overpriced, still can't do anything as good as an android, but still claims to be revolutionary even though they're a year behind Samsung, phones.

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I jumped on the Samsung train for a year and will never go back. Buggy as hell from the start. I never have had problems with my iPhone 6s. I've got an upgrade in a couple months but plan on holding onto it for as long as I can.

BrazosDog02 said:

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I had an iPhone and now have a Note. Having used both, the android based system has more doodads and crap to modify but there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that ios is superior in usability, stability, backup capability, restoration capability, and probably other things I am glossing over. The backup and restore functionality on apple devices and their ability to sync and communicate as an ecosystem is almost superior in every way to android. In fact, I am being generous by even putting the two in the same league.

Apple....nailed it.

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Except for the whole headphone jack thing... total dealbreaker unfortunately.

Pman17 said:

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I love watching the press conference. It's crazy they knew how big it would be.

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Steve's keynotes were so much more fun and playful than Tim's keynotes.