> but we would have just seen the same thing transpire over a number of years if iPhone hadn't been created.
Maybe, but I’m not certain we would have converged on a single form factor. Only Apple had the retail, marketing, software, hardware capabilities, discipline, and incentives to throw everything behind the minimalistic design and single form factor and turn it into a hit.
Everyone else was splitting their efforts across multiple form factors and relying on carrier stores to sell their phones, and I don’t think that was going to revolutionize anything.
Advanced capabilities were truly depressing. Better hardware would have helped a lot, but given how poor Android trundled(s?) along, I'm inclined to agree that only someone with a strong vision was going to execute it as well as Steve did.
It's strange to think it was only 4 years after the initial release that he died.