Re:Speed Is the Killer Feature
by asoneth on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @05:33PM
(#26335746)
Using a touchscreen pre-iPhone usually felt like executing commands on a computer application.
Using an iPhone felt like directly manipulating the underlying content. It was a qualitatively different experience that only superficially resembled previous touchscreen devices insofar as it used similar input hardware.
Note that Apple didn't invent the concept of a responsive UI thread with physics-based UI metaphors, for example Jeff Han demonstrated a fairly sophisticated example at TED2006[1] the year before. But to my knowledge the iPhone was the first mass-produced device with a direct manipulation interface.
Using an iPhone felt like directly manipulating the underlying content. It was a qualitatively different experience that only superficially resembled previous touchscreen devices insofar as it used similar input hardware.
Note that Apple didn't invent the concept of a responsive UI thread with physics-based UI metaphors, for example Jeff Han demonstrated a fairly sophisticated example at TED2006[1] the year before. But to my knowledge the iPhone was the first mass-produced device with a direct manipulation interface.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_han_the_radical_promise_of_th...