But at the same time.... I had been doing nearly everything the iPhone could do in terms of raw functionality (plus plenty of stuff that took 1+ years to land on iPhones) on multiple different Windows Mobile and Palm smartphones pre-iPhone.
Saying pre-iPhone smartphones don't count because "ugly nerdphone with gross keyboard" is just as ridiculous as a "iPhone was overhyped and no better than existing smartphones" claim.
Apple created a device category within smartphones that then consumed and became what we now think of as a "smartphone" after iPhone and Android together strangled the first movers.
Like, the famous Steve Jobs "an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator" line was just listing standard smartphone features by that point. More or less the definition of a smartphone in fact.
Meanwhile the majority of people on earth own one or multiple devices that are more or less clones of the original iPhone, only faster, larger, thinner, and exponentially more capable.
Because by the time of the iPhone coming out everyone j knew had a Blackberry or some internet connected Nokia slider - the iPhone was significantly less capable than either of those. And yeah, both Nokia and Blackberry screwed the pooch. But again, pretending like smartphones didn't exist or that they were a "blip in the market" is intellectually dishonest, or like I said - based on what you read not based on actual lived experience. Unless you live in the US iPhones were a curiosity for years, a status symbol.
