The First All-Touch Phone Was Created By IBM, Not Apple

[Phillip Swanson]

1992 was an eventful year. Gas was a paltry $1.05 a gallon. John Gotti got life in Prison. Bill Clinton became president. The Rodney King Riots overtook L.A.

Oh, and IBM invented the first all-touch phone: The Simon.

Simon was a gigantic device complete with a touch-based interface via a monochrome screen of touchy goodness. The screen even adapted to a given application albeit in a limited fashion. What else did a person need to do other than make phone calls, check a calendar or receive a fax in the early 90s?

It sported a matte black finish, something modern-day designers could take a cue from. Glossy doesn’t equal expensive anymore, it only equals scratches, and uncontrollable amount of scratches.

Watching the video makes me wonder how people got anything done during my youth. Life must have been a horrible mishmash of face-to-face communication and phone calls interrupted by a screeching fax machine.

Source: Gizmodo

[*T*]

Talk about old news, huh

[ipodtouchman77]

Let the apple haters roll in...

[Agent929]

I remember that!

[ALAN523]

wheres the multitouch?

[treble26]

I could swear I just saw someone dialing on a black brick.

[z6joker9]

Wow, I remember this phone. It was high tech and outrageously expensive for the time. We had one for sale at my parents store but it never sold. We probably still have it somewhere...

[iLoveWindows&iPhone]

So which was first....the "Simon"...or that Apple touch phone prototype thingy that there was just an article on?

[metaserph]

When are they going to release the jailbreak for the Simon? 0_o

And although technically the Simon was the first touch phone, the entire concept of what has become the iPhone, iOS and what we have today came from Apple's early work on the Newton. I had 2, they were pretty amazing devices of their time, sadly mishandled for years. Until the iPhone. Just for the record.

The Newton platform was an early personal digital assistant and the first tablet platform developed by Apple, the second platform being iOS, used in the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Development[clarification needed] of the Newton platform started in 1987 and officially ended on February 27, 1998.

http://gizmodo.com/5452193/the-story...-apples-newton

[luvmytj]

Ahhh, the early 1990's... I remember them fondly. At that time who would of guessed the traditional wired home phone would go the way of the dinosaurs. While not Apple related, this article is true but we can say that Apple did in fact make the first portable touch phone.

[Adbs98]

Its funny that this article came up. My uncle was actually one of the lead design engineers on this. He actually is on the patent. He still works for IBM and several months ago, going on a hiking trip to Utah we had a good discussion on this. He actually remembers going to a trade show to show it off and they left it out in the car and it was cold and the screen would not come up and they were scrambling to warm it up.

IBM has a very very strong case on patient infringement but for reasons we may never know they never persued it. To add to this my Uncle was actually supenad on several occasions regarding who had the patent rights.

People may laugh but we had to start somewhere. Without this who is to say the iphone we have all come to love would be what it is today.

Thanks Uncle Dave

[DnBKiD521]

When are they going to release the jailbreak for the Simon? 0_o

I fell out my chair when I read that !!

+1

[Mrteacup]

did apple claim it was the first touch phone. i don't get the title though "first all touch" all touch? apple hasn't got that yet haha

[NetMage]

I actually have one I bought used around the time I got my first Newton (still the best PDA ever). I never used it for anything, but it was neat at the time.

[domenicp]

did apple claim it was the first touch phone. i don't get the title though "first all touch" all touch? apple hasn't got that yet haha

very true

[metaserph]

Yeah the Newton was bad**s. I was part of a club for about 6 years.

[JPili]

In my opinion, I like glossy better than matte. I don't really care about getting scratches (I hardly get any). I only care about my iPhone looking sexy. Besides, I heard that they're coming out with scratch proof glass in a few years! At least, that's what I heard...

[Zokunei]

The scratches on iPods are ridiculous. I still don't know where they find metal that scratches so much.

[*T*]

The scratches on iPods are ridiculous. I still don't know where they find metal that scratches so much.

Amen. My old iPod got scratched as much as anyone else's, even though I have a case on it 24-7. I think the dust inside the case scratched it lol

[dennder]

This video only demonstrates that any major company could have built such device, and many actually did. Apple just did it at the right time, with the proper ease of use.
What's the problem then? Jealousy, that at the launch of iPhone 2G everyone was like "fu apple bs" and in several years everyone is doing the same?

P.S. Thx for sharing, i actually though windows mobile was the first "usable" device.