Hacker News Reader

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

That's like a funniest thing I read all day, assuming you are being serious. Was an iPhone revolutionary in terms of smartphones? Sure. But calling it a greatest invention in human history, within 100 years of literally thousands of other groundbreaking inventions, is just hilarious.

View on HN

It’s not that crazy, assuming they’re equating it with everyone having a general purpose computer in their pocket (probably a greater impact on society than the previous personal computer revolution). But yeah, maybe a bit over the top...

I mean, even if you are, what does that have to do with an iPhone specifically? People had all kinds of smartphones before iPhone even launched(that were perfectly fine for browsing the internet, reading email, taking and sharing photos etc.....even if it wasn't the most polished experience), and even for years after it was just a weird curiosity that only rich people could afford(outside of select few markets like US). Calling it the biggest achievement of humanity reads like a really poor joke, unless I don't know, you are relatively rich and iPhone was your first smartphone, then I guess it felt revolutionary, but that's an extremely narrow perspective, and again, comparing it to human achievements of just the past 100 years it pales completely, for the simplest example I'd say the internet was a bigger and better invention.

> People had all kinds of smartphones before iPhone even launched

Not only that, but Apple never even had (or was anywhere close to having) a majority on that market. The actual popularity of modern-day smartphone skyrocketed due to Android devices replacing all sorts of feature phones.

I'd agree as far as the "i" part of "iPhone" goes. In my opinion, the internet is right up there with the greatest inventions in human history.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com