If you can not see the difference in the touchscreen UI between the Wizard (or any other pre-iPhone device) and the iPhone, you have to be blind.
Until the iPhone, touch-screen phones were slow, clunky and unresponsive. They had shitty resistive screens that were a total pain to use. (LG actually released a capacitive phone before the iPhone, but the software was the same shit we had for ages so it didn't change a thing). Even simple things like lists were scrolled by aiming for a 2px wide scrollbar and dragging it.
But then the iPhone came along with smooth and fluid graphics and animations, actually innovative and fun touch gestures like simple flicks to scroll through lists (and a 60fps smooth animation while doing so), pinch-to-zoom and so on. The experience was actually enjoyable.
The same thing happened with the iPad. Back in the early 2000's we had "tablets" with a downsized desktop OS (Windows XP). Total shit for a touch-screen device.
Even after the iPhone some competitors failed to realize what made it good. Nokia's touch screen abominations were just sad - and they're still releasing some terrible Symbian devices like the new PureView 808. The Verge's review summarizes Symbian's problems pretty well:
> THE SYMBIAN EFFECT: WHEN GREAT HARDWARE IS RENDERED USELESS BY TERRIBLE SOFTWARE
> Actions like scrolling or pinch-to-zoom feel like requests you’re filing with a clerk somewhere in a bureaucratic dystopia — to be carried out at some indeterminate time in the future. Completing this slow-motion train wreck is the only thing worse than unresponsive operation: a complete crash of the entire phone.
Apple needs to stop with their bullshit litigation but they truly did push the industry forward with touch devices. It isn't a coincidence that touch screen phones exploded after the iPhone and that people actually started caring about tablets after the iPad.
It seems like you're walking back the claims of the guy I responded to for him: "Oh, well, okay, Apple didn't have the first touchscreen phone, but they had the first good one."
Well, I don't even agree with you on that.
I got five years out of my "unenjoyable" HTC smartphone. I could tether it to my laptop without forking over extra money. I could run whatever apps were available (which is more than could be said for the iPhone on launch day, because there weren't any). I had a full keyboard, a web browser that supported SSL, a music player, and Pocket PuTTY -- should I have given a shit about smooth scrolling?
I also got many years out of my old Nokia smartphone (which on paper could do more than the first iPhone). However, I immediately understood what a revolution the iPhone UI was when it launched.
Lucky for Apple that most competitors had key people who thought exactly like you do for a good while after the iPhone launched - why give a shit about smooth scrolling and polished, intuitive interfaces?
Until the iPhone, touch-screen phones were slow, clunky and unresponsive. They had shitty resistive screens that were a total pain to use. (LG actually released a capacitive phone before the iPhone, but the software was the same shit we had for ages so it didn't change a thing). Even simple things like lists were scrolled by aiming for a 2px wide scrollbar and dragging it.
But then the iPhone came along with smooth and fluid graphics and animations, actually innovative and fun touch gestures like simple flicks to scroll through lists (and a 60fps smooth animation while doing so), pinch-to-zoom and so on. The experience was actually enjoyable.
The same thing happened with the iPad. Back in the early 2000's we had "tablets" with a downsized desktop OS (Windows XP). Total shit for a touch-screen device.
Even after the iPhone some competitors failed to realize what made it good. Nokia's touch screen abominations were just sad - and they're still releasing some terrible Symbian devices like the new PureView 808. The Verge's review summarizes Symbian's problems pretty well:
> THE SYMBIAN EFFECT: WHEN GREAT HARDWARE IS RENDERED USELESS BY TERRIBLE SOFTWARE
> Actions like scrolling or pinch-to-zoom feel like requests you’re filing with a clerk somewhere in a bureaucratic dystopia — to be carried out at some indeterminate time in the future. Completing this slow-motion train wreck is the only thing worse than unresponsive operation: a complete crash of the entire phone.
Apple needs to stop with their bullshit litigation but they truly did push the industry forward with touch devices. It isn't a coincidence that touch screen phones exploded after the iPhone and that people actually started caring about tablets after the iPad.