[DubiousPusher]

> Essentially, before the iPhone, most people did not believe they needed a smartphone.

I think that's way overstating it. Long before iPhone people were asking for more software features out of their phones. Browsing, email, music, etc.

Even the touchscreen and the development model were things tried in the past with many attempts by various companies to make the PDA a success.

Apple did exactly what you say. They took a few ideas whose time had come, ideas that just happened to be in their wheel house from the work they did on iPod and presented them better than anyone had before.