[dagw]

iOS is really the game changer

Agreed, but not by being first. Apple won by waiting till the time was right, all the technology was mature and then executing everything better than everybody else. And if we look across the past decade or so we'll find plenty of times that Apple and iOS copied features first seen in Android phones.

[itsthejb]

I think that, if you look at the first iPhone, the technology was not at all “mature”. The first versions had some decidedly undesirable workarounds in both hardware and software. There’s even an interesting argument that Apple’s reliance on a somewhat outdated, non-“modern” language (ObjC) was an advantage when switching to low powered mobile hardware. What Apple did was succeeded in a more concept driven paradigm change - usable soft keyboard, multi touch, usable “full web” browser. Also rejecting dubious technologies like Flash that were considered de facto at the time. Basically packaging standard technologies into a far better conceived whole. This was their successful business model for a long time. It’s only recently that Apple has been leading technology in terms of innovation, and that only happened once they became so dominant, which only happened after the iPhone