Feed your mind. Feast your eyes.
6 times Apple wasn’t first
But first doesn’t always mean best, does it?
BY ADAM BANKS5
The graphical
user interface
Windows, icons, menus and
the pointer came together at
Xerox PARC. After Apple’s
visits in 1979, the Lisa paved
the way and the Macintosh
finally mainstreamed the
GUI. Xerox profited more
from its Apple shares than
2 its computers.The iPod
Inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, the name was new, but
portable digital MP3 players were already common. The iPod’s
innovation was its tiny hard disk — later dropped for the same
flash memory everyone else used.1
USB
1998’s iMac was first to ditch the old serial and parallel ports
entirely. But other PCs had offered USB before this, developed
at Intel with partners not including Apple.4
Touchscreens
The iPhone’s capacitive
multi–touch display beat
monochrome stylus screens
such as the Newton
MessagePad’s. Even color
PDAs such as Sharp’s EM–
ONE, launched months after
the iPhone, had clumsy
resistive screens. So Apple
was kind of first, using tech it
bought in 2005. Bell Labs
demoed capacitive multi–
touch in 1984.3
The App Store
By 2008, Windows Mobile
had a store with 18,000 apps;
PDA maker Palm claimed
30,000. So the iPhone wasn’t
first. But hitting 250,
apps within two years was
something very new.6
The notch
The camera notch that
marred the iPhone X’s edge–
to–edge screen was cannily
marketed as a feature. But
2015’s LG V10 had a sort of
notch at its top left, while the
Essential Phone PH1, from
Android inventor Andy
Rubin, had a keyhole notch
six months before Apple’s.Im
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Start
12 SEP 2019 maclife.com