[cromwellian]

Yes, the LG Prada phone for one. But it's terrible for other people to follow Apple, but completely ok for Apple to ape the design of others.

Designs pioneered by Android and later aped by Apple

* 4, 5, and 6 inch Phablet phones. Remember this commercial? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O99m7lebirE

* Mini tablets. http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/10/18/jobs-7-tablets-should...

* Edge to Edge Displays (now rumored to be in iPhone 8)

* Removing physical home buttons for soft buttons w/haptics (now rumors iPhone 8, iPhone 7 half way there)

* Dual cameras, multi-led flash

* Wide gamut display, shipping in AMOLED phones first.

* Builtin water-resistance, done in Android phones for years, even with a headphone jack present

You can argue that when Apple adopts the design of Android phones, they execute better, but what's galling is that any feature Apple has first is referred to as "theft" when Android adopts it, even if Android improves on it, not the other way around is just overlooked.

[ethanbond]

It's pretty apparent, really, that the iPhone was in no way inspired by the LG Prada, given that the iPhone was announced less than a month after the Prada was announced.

Maybe you could argue that all the slab devices were inspired by the Prada, despite the Prada 2 itself backing away from the form factor and adding a keyboard?

I didn't claim Apple doesn't steal features from others. In fact, Jobs himself has been very vocal about his feature theft.

My only argument is that the iPhone form factor, despite its dominance today, was never "obvious." The iPhone is what created a world in which it's nearly impossible to buy a phone outside of that form factor.

[cromwellian]

There were slab smartphones before the iPhone, arguably, they retained a lot of buttons (usually cursor keys, or 2-4 macro buttons, especially on models that had resistive touch). I've consistently been an early adopter of high tech smartphones and carried a few.

The iPhone didn't drive a flurry of copying of the slap concept because of it's slabbiness, it drove it because of it's features. Do you think the Blackberry's adoption was because of it's keyboard, or because of the addictive nature of push messaging in the crackberry's implementation?

An iPhone with a keyboard form factor, but with all of the other features it launched with, would have still dominated. The OS was radically advanced over Symbian, it had a much better screen, CPU, and just worked better. I had plenty of Symbian smartphones with Wifi, none of them could lock on as quickly as an iPhone or seamlessly switch.

The iPhone did everything right for a Smartphone, and created the demand that made it something non-geeks could use. This is what compelled everyone else to follow.

Go grab you iPhone 2007 model and compare it to today's iPhone 5/6/7, the designs don't match or feel the same at all.

Capacitive touch IMHO is the main advancement, not the overall industrial design.