“While some people were disappointed that Apple did not introduce the iPhone 5, most pretty much missed the significance of the event and the fact that they were witnessing history,” Tim Bajarin writes for Tech.pinions.
“In 1984, when Steve Jobs introduced the Mac, he did something quite historic. He introduced the Mac’s graphical user interface. But he actually topped himself with the introduction of another technology-the mouse,” Bajarin writes. “In essence, he introduced the next user input device that has been at the heart of personal computing for nearly two decades.”
“What’s interesting about this is that he did not invent the GUI. That came from Xerox Parc. And he did not invent the mouse. Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse,” Bajarin writes. “But by marrying them to his OS he reinvented the GUI and OS and gave us a completely new way to deliver the man-machine interface through the mouse. Until that time all computer input was done by textual typing.”
“Then, in 2007, with the introduction of the iPhone, Jobs and team did it again,” Bajarin writes. “He created the touch user interface and this time married it to his iOS. He did not invent touch computing… But he integrated it within iOS and gave the world a completely new way to interact with small, handheld computers… [Apple] have even extended it to their core Mac portable computing platform as well. In essence, Jobs second UI act was to bring touch UI’s to mainstream computing.”
Bajarin writes, “Now, with the introduction of SIRI, integrated into iOS and a core part of the new iPhone OS, he and the Apple team have given to the world what we will look back on and realize is the next major user input technology-Voice and Speech.”
Read more in the full article here.