BlackBerrys were popular amongst business users, but there were 85 million of those devices in circulation across the globe at their absolute peak. There are currently 8 billion smartphones worldwide, and virtually all of them are descendants of the iPhone form factor and multitouch input paradigm. BlackBerrys were barely Internet devices as we know them today; they did technically have a browser, but it was minimally functional and they were mostly considered email machines. Unlike the original iPhone, they would be virtually unrecognizable to someone today as equivalent to what we carry around in our pockets.

In less time than it took RIM to develop the BlackBerry and reach 85 million users, Apple took a niche device category and completely transformed it into something that spread to the overwhelming majority of the human population on the planet.

Your position is like saying well actually the modern bicycle was actually invented by whomever created the penny farthing. Yes it had two wheels, yes it existed before the safety bicycle. But they were a novelty until the safety bicycle was invented, and every bicycle in circulation today owes its design to that very first one.