[dagw]

The iPhone was revolutionary in execution, not concept. Every individual component (touchscreen, installable apps, browser etc etc.) of the iPhone was already on the market when the iPhone launched, just not gathered together in the same device and executed anywhere near as well as what Apple did.

[nirvana]

This is simply not true. This is a post hoc ergo proctor hoc rationalization that works with people who see that almost all the smartphones out there have copied the iphone and so they believe that they must have existed contempraneously with the iphone.

Or put another way, you might as well have said "There was nothing new about the iPhone, everything important about it existed in the Motorola Razr-- it made calls, worked on GSM, had a screen, installable apps and would let you browse the web."

Or, "Marconi and Bell are the ones who invented the iPhone! And they did it decades before Apple came out with their shiny toy which people only buy because its pretty and marketed really expensively."

Being opinions these statements are more or less true, but they make the same error yours does.

Just because the landline phone pre-existed cellphones doesn't mean that cellphones are not innovative. A cellphone isn't just an execution of a landline phone.

At the same time, just because rudimentary touch screens existed (like Jeff Han's which used cameras) does not mean there was nothing new in the iPhones' touch screen (or do you believe there is a camera sitting about a foot behind your iphones screen taking pictures of your fingers?)

If you recognize that Jeff Han's camera based touch interface is obviously not the one used in the iPhone, then you must recognize that the iPhone contains unique (at the time, before it was copied) innovations.

[dagw]

You do realize that there where a number of touchscreen phones before the iPhone showed up right? Non of them (obviously) using a camera. A company I used to work for was developing software targeting phones driven entirely by touch back in 2000-2001 (the phones never caught on however and the project was never completed)

But back to the point. Yes the iPhone as a package was unique at the time. Certainly the touchscreen was much better than anything I'd seen up that point, and all the apps kicked the respective asses of what had come before. They where also the first company that managed to make a smartphone that was good enough that people actually wanted to own one. That I suppose could be considered revolutionary.

What specific innovations are you thinking about when you're talking about 'unique' innovations?