TECH HISTORY
Who Really Invented The Smartphone? Steve Jobs.
Two recent documentaries try to rewrite the history of the smartphone.
The start of the new year brings with it the inclination to reflect on past events. And while the tech industry is all about looking forward, its rich history readily lends itself to looking back on products that have come before. So it should have come as no surprise when all the tech sites ran stories about the 15th anniversary of the first iPhone earlier this month.
While relatively few can claim they were at the 2007 MacWorld Expo keynote for Steve Jobs’ legendary product introduction, odds are you’ve watched the video at least once: “An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone … Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone.”
Given Apple’s dominance of the smartphone industry since that momentous keynote, it’s understandable that the companies that created the forerunners to today’s smartphones have started to fade from memory. For two of these companies, General Magic and Handspring, documentaries attempt to cast their subjects as the company that pioneered the smartphone, with the subtitle of the Handspring documentary stating “The Secret History of the First Real…
