Its the screen (size) that mattered. While screens make terrible input devices, for content consumption they are king. And that is the dividing line between blackberry/iphones. An argument can also be made for "boring business blackberry" vs "fun" iphone.

The apps were worse, but you had that HUGE screen to look at. And compared to other non-blackberry phones where you were limited to T9 text input, it was a game changer.