I predicted the iPhone 4S in August, 2007 | Hacker News Reader

I predicted the iPhone 4S in August, 2007

datasyndrome.com

12 pointsrjurney18 comments

No, you predicted natural language personal assistants that were integrated into your phone. Demos of those already existed in 2007, and natural language assistants have been in the works since the late 80s. Here's a paper from 1993 that describes a lot of the Siri functionality that exists today: http://www.media.mit.edu/speech/people/lisa/interchi93.html

Siri and the iPhone 4s is nothing new, Apple simply tied a lot of things together that already existed and added a bit of shine and sparkle.

Well, actually I predicted that:

1) The iPhone would become the new dominant computing platform. 2) There would be a dev kit for more tightly integrated applications. 3) A Siri equivalent would be on the iPhone, possibly delivered by a startup or Apple itself. 4) That this would be happening soon, in a subsequent version of the same device, or I would build it myself.

While this isn't magic, it is a pretty good prediction, and a lot more specific than what you just stated.

Finally, if this was all so obvious, why didn't anyone else predict it?

Have to say you were pretty close, but:

>"1) The iPhone would become the new dominant computing platform."

By what measure?

>"why didn't anyone else predict it?"

Absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence.

Now you proved that you didn't read the prediction. GOTO line 1 of the comment and answer your own question.

>Siri and the iPhone 4s is nothing new, Apple simply tied a lot of things together

The original iPhone was nothing new component-wise but something wonderful is summation. This has been Apple's gift. Lots of folks can dream up and write a paper about super-phone, it's a top-notch engineering company, living in the real world of engineering trade-offs, that can actually build and sell millions.

That's nothing. I predicted the iPhone in 2005 and even built a prototype.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tensafefrogs/49199489/

I love the first comment at over 6 years ago.

>yeah, exactly, why the hell would you want an itunes phone!? silly apple, jacks are for pods.

We should collaborate.

Actually Apple predicted this when they released the knowledge navigator video[1] in 1987

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0

All this was predicted a couple of decades ago. There is a natural progression here. Sometime in this decade, you'll slide a keyboard and mouse next to your phone and it will be your desktop computer. Hopefully, the video to the monitor is wireless too.

The real trick is to figure out how to get it all sooner.

You're right. I read history. But still, it was cool that as soon as the iPhone was out, I knew they had too. And that they would deliver.

This is as predictive as Darren Brown showing people how to win the lottery. A billion anonymous Internet denizens typing on a billion keyboards, and so on.

Any real legitimacy in this realm is only derived fron being a consistent predictor over a long period of time.

I do pretty well with predicting Amazon Web Services and data stuff, a couple years out, as well as bottlenecks.

Filed under "for what it's worth" in the "random HN user" folder.

It sounds like you've got some serious Futuristic (http://gmj.gallup.com/content/673/futuristic.aspx) in you. Harness the crap out of that strength.

Thanks :) That is a really great link, reading it now.

"The step after that will be glasses which will coordinate with GPS and cell location to overlay 3D imagery on the street, in malls, etc..."

Is that a prediction of the forthcoming Google Glasses there, too? ;)

Yes, and the Apple ones after those.

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