[cbozeman]

This is hilariously offbase and untrue.

Social media was already taking off long before the iPhone was on the scene. Facebook was open to the public in 2006, MySpace had already taken off like a rocket at that time, receiving more visitors than Google and Yahoo in the US. Twitter launched in 2006 as well.

The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone - not even close in fact. It was just "the best" in terms of user experience, and caused a rapid acceleration of development for Android, which had started to shift to mobile phone development in 2004 anyway, but really hit overdrive when the iPhone was debuted.

Windows Mobile 6 was out at this time - 2008 - and it was straight trash. I had a T-Mobile Wing that I got in 2006, I believe it had Windows Mobile 5.1. It's usability was a joke compared to the iPhone. This pushed Microsoft to create a mobile OS, and eventually they had something that could have been a real contender, because Windows Phone had a really fantastic interface that actually was a lot more usable than iOS or Android, but Microsoft made fuckup after fuckup in a series of events that almost defies belief.

[tgv]

Exactly. The combination of those things is what enabled the cancerous growth of facebook and twitter. Perhaps "by and large" irked you, but Jobs' contribution was essential.