Did people really say that about the original iphone? I don't remember that.
I remember the iPhone announcement as being a product that basically everybody had been asking for and immediately saw the value in. And the rumour cycle leading up to the announcement was insane - people were so hyped for apple to announce a proper smartphone, it was already a product category. Things like the Palm Treo and the Nokia N95 existed and were relatively popular - handheld computers with phone capabilities as well as full web browsers, email clients, maps, video playback, etc. The iPhone was taking a product concept that had already been proven, and hugely improving the form factor and user experience. Nobody saw the iPhone announcement and said "nah, i just don't see the value there".
Gizmodo loved it, but "The real elephant in the room is the fact that I just spent $600 on my iPhone and it can’t do some crucial functions that even $50 handsets can. I’m talking about MMS. Video recording. Custom ringtones. Mass storage. Fully functioning Bluetooth with stereo audio streaming..."
TechCrunch: "That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone. Don’t be surprised if a sizable contingent of iPhone buyers express some remorse at ditching their BlackBerry when they spend an extra hour each day pumping out emails on the road."
A ton of people loved it, but it came under heavy criticism for the lack of physical keyboard and the AT&T dependency.
Not enough emphasis can be placed on the existence of a usable web browser on a phone. It did not exist before. Blackberry was great for emails, and Windows mobile was great for propping your door open, but when Safari on iOS came out, even with it being slow 2G and with a buggy keyboard and no copy/paste -- you could use websites on a mobile device -- anywhere. Being able to pull up amazon and check reviews for products while browsing in a BestBuy or whatever was something that just was not practical before and it was a game changer, instantly.
Lots of people criticized it for not being able to do basic tasks like copy and paste or the lack of 3G after they bought it. The iPhone didn't suffer at all from the criticism because people saw it as a work in progress -- the AT&T attachment was actually brilliant because it allowed them to make AT&T build their network and offer decent data plans. Before iPhone the data rate was something ridiculous as an add-on to a regular phone plan, and everyone using 2G data all at once brought the network to its knees in dense areas and forced upgrades.
Yeah my point wasn't that it was universally loved - there was plenty of criticism. but the criticism was because other things in the same product category were better than iPhone at some things. and that's because the product category already existed, and people were used to using those products and had already formed opinions about how they should work.
an augmented-reality headset is a fundamentally different sell, because that's not a product that currently exists in any meaningful way. Apple doesn't have to convince me that their AR headset is better than any other one that i've tried, because i've never tried one. They will have to convince me that this is a thing i need to own.
I remember the iPhone announcement as being a product that basically everybody had been asking for and immediately saw the value in. And the rumour cycle leading up to the announcement was insane - people were so hyped for apple to announce a proper smartphone, it was already a product category. Things like the Palm Treo and the Nokia N95 existed and were relatively popular - handheld computers with phone capabilities as well as full web browsers, email clients, maps, video playback, etc. The iPhone was taking a product concept that had already been proven, and hugely improving the form factor and user experience. Nobody saw the iPhone announcement and said "nah, i just don't see the value there".