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Comment by gary17the | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps there aren't more biographies of Steve Jobs, because the general public does not really consider Jobs to be "an important historical figure of our time" (and neither Apple to be the most important technological company of our time)?

IMHO, when the iPhone came out, it did not introduce almost anything revolutionary over the already available Windows Mobile PDA devices, it only simplified, polished and packaged the device way better. I still do not understand how Microsoft, considering their extensive experience in operating system development, somehow managed to lose their entire, massive mobile device market share in the course of only a couple of years. All it could have taken for Microsoft to win over Apple was to switch Windows Mobile from a cumbersome stylus-based UI to a convenient touch-based UI without wasting years and years to re-develop the misguided Windows Phone from scratch.

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> I still do not understand how Microsoft, considering their extensive experience in operating system development, somehow managed to lose their entire, massive mobile device market share in the course of only a couple of years.

Maybe because the iPhone actually delivered much much more that was already available on windows mobile ?

Even if the iPhone delivered much more than what was already available on Windows Mobile (doubtful, considering that Microsoft's software was years of development ahead, functionality-wise), it's still incomprehensible to me why a company as massively experienced as Microsoft did not react as quickly as possible by copying iPhone features to improve Windows Mobile, but instead delayed their time-to-market for years by going the Windows Phone route.

Probably, it was not Apple's ingenuity that won the battle, but Microsoft's stupidity not to improve their product ASAP that lost the battle.

You're talking about the biggest IT company which in 2006 was redesigning their whole big boy Windows.

Ballmer was deriding the iPhone by not having a keyboard, therefore being just a gimmick not worth of being a work device.

Plus, probably in 2007 having access a capacitive touch screens was most likely not so simple as today. The availability was limited. Plus, the apps were designed around having a physical keyboard and buttons available.

You need to take in consideration that big corporations are more often slow, bureaucratic, in decision paralysis and having in control people that are managers, not innovators. Microsoft is one of these from time to time, it is a pendulum swing. Steve Balmer was a marketing guy, not an innovator like Steve Jobs. If you look closely, being an innovator is not the path to success, Steve jobs was fired by a bureaucrat (and the board) at Apple, Elon Musk caught a lot of flak at all times, etc. The cancer of incompetent managers is a recurring plague in companies and generalized in governments, that's life.

There are exceptions, but they are not the rule.

Internal politics + bean counters at the wheels.

the original iPhone had no 3G (only Edge supported), no copy-paste, no app store (by design!), no MMS. Edit: and most likely no enterprise directory integration (Exchange et al)

BUT it felt the most futuristic piece of technology money could buy, and the high price point made it a luxury good that stood out of the Blackberries and Windows phones.

I like to think it was bought by CEOs and CTOs and executives who forced their IT dept. to support them because they were just so damn cool.

At the time, it felt to me like the first big iPhone user cohort was iPod power-users. I seem to remember business users dismissing it as a gimmick because of the lack of keyboard, wifi, and apps. That's only my personal recollection, though, I have no actual data.

I think that's what the OP is saying. It's like Microsoft had a 2 mile lead in a marathon, but still ended up coming last.

three words: user experience design. Windows designs tools and Apple designs experiences for its users. This is coming from someone who has only owned a G4 laptop from Apple. Im not a huge consumer of their ecosystem.

Are you familiar with the abomination that used to be called the Control Panel ?

Microsoft is a B2B company, not a B2C.

If you look at the modern iPhone, it' settings tree structure is as confusing and unmanageable as the good old Control Panel, there's almost no UI ergonomics difference nor any UI innovation there.

Well, since Microsoft invested as massively into the Windows Phone as to re-develop it from scratch and ship free 1.0 devices to all developers who requested one, I would say that Microsoft did indeed want to keep their B2C market share pretty badly. Yet, they failed.

Could you please elaborate on your opinion? I personally really liked the old Windows control panel

If you don’t understand how iPhone could have defeated Windows Mobile, it’s hard to take you seriously on your other points.

You m-u-s-t be a Steve Jobs fan, you even argue similarly ;) J/K.

But seriously, there is a question of whether Apple won the mobile device battle because they were brilliant and revolutionary, or whether Microsoft has lost the mobile device battle because they were dumb as a bag'o'hammers and quit improving their platform for entire years.

Which goes back to my initial suggestion that the general public might have reasons not to really consider Apple to be the most important technological company of our time.

If you have an explanation, I'd be delighted.

> But seriously, there is a question of whether Apple won the mobile device battle because they were brilliant and revolutionary, or whether Microsoft has lost the mobile device battle because they were dumb as a bag'o'hammers and quit improving their platform for entire years.

There was more at the time than just Apple and Microsoft. iPhone also quickly supplanted Palm and Blackberry and assorted feature phones. Android was not yet out, but after seeing iPhone Google completely redesigned Android to be much more iPhone-like.

So it seems it either has to be Apple really did do something brilliant and revolutionary, or everyone else was dumb as a bag'o'hammers.

I definitely see your point: Android re-designed and stayed in the game against Apple, while Palm, Blackberry, Nokia, etc. did not re-design immediately - just like Windows Mobile - and failed.

But that does not automatically mean that Apple was (literally) brilliant and (genuinely) revolutionary, it only means that Apple was right in their decision to obsessively prioritize "simplified, polished and packaged" over everything else. Being excellent at product development, manufacturing and marketing does not automatically make a company brilliant and revolutionary. I guess it depends on how you define "brilliant" and "revolutionary", but as far as I can tell Apple rather rarely invented something truly "never seen before". (The only iPhone innovation that really made me go "WOW!" was the dot-less, curve-ful retina display. Now THAT was an idea, indeed, "never seen before".)

It seems to me that while Apple of course did do something right (although not necessarily brilliant and revolutionary), everyone else (except Android) was indeed dumb as a bag'o'hammers. For years they failed to significantly improve their platforms to remain competitive and that was all it took for Apple to win.

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