[gary17the]

I definitely see your point: Android re-designed and stayed in the game against Apple, while Palm, Blackberry, Nokia, etc. did not re-design immediately - just like Windows Mobile - and failed.

But that does not automatically mean that Apple was (literally) brilliant and (genuinely) revolutionary, it only means that Apple was right in their decision to obsessively prioritize "simplified, polished and packaged" over everything else. Being excellent at product development, manufacturing and marketing does not automatically make a company brilliant and revolutionary. I guess it depends on how you define "brilliant" and "revolutionary", but as far as I can tell Apple rather rarely invented something truly "never seen before". (The only iPhone innovation that really made me go "WOW!" was the dot-less, curve-ful retina display. Now THAT was an idea, indeed, "never seen before".)

It seems to me that while Apple of course did do something right (although not necessarily brilliant and revolutionary), everyone else (except Android) was indeed dumb as a bag'o'hammers. For years they failed to significantly improve their platforms to remain competitive and that was all it took for Apple to win.