Why was it such a big deal when the first iPhone dropped?

 Before 2007, the world's most advanced phones sacrificed half their face to permanent plastic keyboards. The first iPhone rendered them instantly obsolete with a single slab of glass.

A Palm Treo 680 smartphone displays its physical QWERTY keyboard and navigation buttons below the screen. Photo by Giaccai is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

To understand the shift, you have to look at what represented the peak of mobile technology right before Apple's announcement. Devices like the Palm Treo and BlackBerry were miniature computers forced into a pocketable format. Because the physical keys took up so much space, users were left with a tiny screen for visual output. Navigation required tapping on the display with a plastic stylus or rolling a mechanical trackball. Web browsing was largely limited to the "mobile web" (WAP)—a stripped-down, simplified version of the internet that barely resembled a desktop experience.

When Apple introduced the first-generation iPhone in January 2007, it discarded these industry standards entirely.

An original 2007 iPhone sits upright in a white charging dock, displaying its startup screen. Photo by Andrew is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

The most radical hardware change was the 3.5-inch glass screen. By abandoning the permanent physical keyboard, Apple created a device whose interface could adapt to whatever application was currently open. The display was entirely multi-touch, meaning it responded to bare fingers rather than a plastic stylus. Gestures that are now second nature—like pinching a map to zoom in or flicking a list to scroll—were introduced to consumers for the first time, functioning with a fluidity that no competitor had achieved.

Software was the other half of the shift. Instead of the fractured, text-based mobile web, the iPhone ran a desktop-class browser, Safari. Users could view full webpages exactly as they appeared on a computer monitor, zooming in to read text. Apple also integrated the functionality of its iPod directly into the phone, eliminating the need for consumers to carry a separate MP3 player.

The original iPhone lacked 3G connectivity and could not install third-party apps until the App Store launched a year later. But its core premise—a touch-driven slab of glass running a full operating system—instantly rendered the stylus-and-keyboard era obsolete, dictating the physical shape of every mobile device that followed.

Why was it such a big deal when the first iPhone dropped?

 Steve Jobs knew his company was in big trouble.

In 2001, Apple introduced its incredibly popular “iPod”, a tiny music player that was essentially a memory card with a speaker and LED screen attached to it.

It sold like hotcakes, but when Jobs saw this he knew the device was doomed.

The Nokia N91, released in 2006. Not only could it hold as many songs as an iPod, you could also make phone calls, take pictures and run a little software. No-one would want an iPod if they had one of these and merely making an iPod have more memory was out of the question.

So he needed a killer. As such, when the N91 was announced in 2005, Jobs started pushing something that would totally blow it out of the water. It was going to be a phone that could do anything you wanted to.

And, about 18 months later, he hinted he would reveal three new products - a widescreen iPod with touch controls instead of a wheel, a revolutionary mobile phone, and an internet communication appliance.

And then, he stepped onto a stage in San Francisco and showed them it was all the same gadget.

Apple had managed to cobble together a working prototype and Jobs was determined to make it look better than any other similar device on the market. To make it work, he literally had to follow a script that would allow the thing to work without crashing. It would be about six more months before you could actually buy the darn thing. Unlike a Nokia or Blackberry, there were hardly any buttons. Unlike a Palm Pilot, you didn’t need a stylus. It did more than all three of them combined.

They sold 270,000 of them the first week. It kept getting better as developers found the iPhone to be an excellent software platform.

It was another 16 months before anyone else had anything like it - the HTC Dream the following October.

But those buttons! You couldn’t type on its screen. It was another six months before HTC came up with a screen only version, the Magic, where you could use the screen for input. Moreover, by this time, the iPhone had tremendously more software available for it.

Now, eventually Android devices caught up and surpassed iPhone capabilities for less money, but by this time Apple already had an established customer base and a reputation for ease of use. Right now, Apple phones only account for 21% of all smartphones… but they’re still the single biggest manufacturer.

What was the greatest business deal of all time?

 In 1980, IBM was the giant. No one came close. They approached a small company- Microsoft when they required an operating system in their new PC. Big mistake.

Bill Gates spotted the opportunity and did not procrastinate. He made one major point during the deal and that is, Microsoft would retain the ownership of the software. IBM didn’t care. They were specialized in hardware money. That decision it made was everything.

This is the twist about it, Microsoft did not even have an OS.

So Gates was quick. He purchased a crude and incomplete system named QDOS at only $75,000. No drama, no delay. After that, he cleaned it, changed its name to MS-DOS, and prepared it.

And the very thrust: the business was not exclusive. Microsoft had the ability to sell the same software to anybody. And they did.

IBM believed that they were in the lead. As a matter of fact, they gave the reign to another person.

Imitation of IBM PCs became rampant. Each of them required an OS. Microsoft was ready. They did not sell machines, they sold the key to machines.

Hardware at IBM was replaceable. The software of Microsoft was inevitable.

This wasn’t luck. It was promptitude, rapidity, and keenness.

A purchase costing $75,000 became worldwide domination.

Not a partnership. A slow motion takeover.

Who was the most disliked member of the Nazi regime among the German population during World War II?

World War 2 was a difficult time not knowing which of the leaders of the Nazi party Germans disliked most. The government was highly strict(Read Full)