Hacker News Reader

Or tablets? When Apple announced the iPad, the punditocracy swore it would fail since tablets have never sold well and basically nobody cared.

Of worse the iPad was wildly successful. These guys don't get it.

And tablets… and portable music players… and small and light laptops… and…

The sentence you quote does look outright ridiculous when said about Apple.

Lots of people liked tablets, and portable music players, and small and light laptops, and smartphones before Apple. Mostly geeks and not "lots" in the same sense as "lots of people bought iPods/iPads" but there was still a kernel of utility that people could clearly see the value in. IVR is a big step beyond any of those.

Exactly, my first touch screen device was a Windows CE mini laptop (before they were called web tops) and the accuracy of the screen input was poor.

Apple did it right with the first iPhone and now every smartphone has to sport a touch screen.

The fact that Siri is only available in a few languages is a good indication that each of these has been given a thorough effort to get it right.