That’s right. No one likes “Computer Administrative Debris”, and certainly not Edward Tuft.
In his old, but brief video where he breaks down the details of Apple’s iPhone interface, Tuft explains what made the iPhone magical when it was first released several years ago. Today’s market has been flooded with smartphones that duplicate, and surpass in some cases, many of the interface features Apple originally brought to the table. But the iPhone was miles ahead of the competition when it was first released in the summer of 2007, so much so that Apple is viciously fighting with competitors over patent infringement.
By "pinching" the screen to zoom in and out of content, users can manipulate content without the need of a physical menu.
Features like pinch to zoom and swiping across the page, which help the user navigate through content on their phone without the aid of a visual interface, empower users to view more content without obstruction. Features like that give more visual real-estate to the content that matters, and make life much easier for the user.
Apple also recently patented the concept of how the user would navigate through all of a smartphone’s content. While the idea of interacting with a touch-interface was not Apple’s originally, it took the idea and envisioned a flat, black rectangle with rounded corners that the user could interact directly with.
Nokia's latest Windows phone is currently the only phone on the market with a higher pixel density than the iPhone 5.
Apple has also led the market, until recently, with extremely high resolution screens. The original iPhone had a pixel density of 163 dpi, but the current iPhone 5 display has double that with 326 dpi. Though the difference is minuscule, Nokia’s Lumia 920 is the only smartphone on the market that exceeds the current mark at 330 dpi. With such progress in a few short years, it’s clear that the capability to display high-quality content is trending upward.
While the iPhone is no longer unanimously considered the best smartphone on the market, Apple’s contributions to the smartphone market cannot be ignored. Apple’s focus on creating an interface that eliminates clutter and overload empowers users to access content at its highest potential.