[fpgeek]

I hadn't seen even one of these before the iPhone (there were a few people who used them, but i would say their market share would be less than 1% in smartphones)

I think the rapid expansion of the smartphone market (led, in large part, by the iPhone) is tricking your eyes. Touch-screen smartphones were a significant part of the pre-iPhone smartphone market. But unless you were specifically paying attention to them, you wouldn't have seen that because the smartphone market was so much smaller back then.