You give them far too much credit. Apple happened to be first in implementing an obvious conclusion in the evolution of computing: combining a true operating system with the features of a PDA and adding a radio. Many people saw this coming a decade earlier; I was one of them.
The reason it happened when it did had to do with the hard work of the scientists and engineers who kept shrinking and creating ever more powerful computing technology, not with the guy who happened to allow his engineers to pursue this obvious conclusion. Steve Jobs was a visionary only when compared to other CEO's, not when compared to the scientists and engineers that really make things happen.
"Obvious" is a relative term. What is obvious to an adult may not be obvious to a 2-year-old. Likewise, to many engineers the iPhone was obvious. To many of the CEO's heading large cell phone companies? Not so obvious.
Many people like to talk up things like the iPhone as "betting the company", maybe rather than being idiots, these cell phone CEOs realised that the easiest way to make money was to milk their mostly captive audience for every cent they could? Why risk something new? And why does every narrative about the iPhone have to involve everyone else being idiots and Steve Jobs and (via some associative magical thinking) iPhone owners being so clever and tasteful. It's all a bit transparent.
If the iPhone was obvious to many engineers, why did none of them develop a similar product? Why did Google's Android team develop an operating system that resembled a Blackberry, only to transition to something that closer resembled an iPhone after the iPhone's launch?
Usually engineers don't get to decide where major resources are applied. That's the call of the increasingly non-technically savvy CEO. (HP is typical of this trend -- founded by engineers who were the cause of its greatness, over time degrading and being run by MBA's instead).
"Why did Google's Android team develop an operating system that resembled a Blackberry"
Irrelevant. The trend toward a more powerful OS as computing resources increased was inevitable. Somebody happened to get there first, and they deserve a pat on the back for winning that race, but they should not get all the credit. People who came before who actually pushed the technology to the limit deserve most of the credit; all Apple did was exploit it at an opportune time.
Engineers don't often build great products on their own. You also need great industrial design, great user interface design etc. In some ways I can relate to your view - as a software engineer myself I often fall into the trap of thinking everything I do is 'obvious' and that any other right thinking engineer would have probably made the same decisions. For any one decision this might even be true, but for large, complex systems it certainly isn't. Everything is obvious with hindsight, as they say.
Your certainty that the innovations brought to the table by the original iPhone were inevitable needs to be justified I'm afraid. Of course it's true that there are many hardware components in all modern smartphones for which the development of which had nothing to do with Apple. However as with the original Mac, to dismiss Apple's contribution is rather to miss the point.
I don't dismiss Apple's contribution. On the contrary, I think Apple dismisses the contributions of scientists and engineers that allowed them to build their iPhone. They want to take all the credit, when in fact, only a relatively minuscule amount of credit properly goes to Apple. Do they deserve this minuscule credit? Sure. I don't dismiss that. But the contribution by those who created the technology that go into the iPhone is far greater.
It's as if someone created the most cool looking web page on the planet, and then wanted to claim they invented the Internet. That's how I see Apple. They merely rearranged existing technology in a nifty way, they didn't create all of it. They deserve credit for what they did, not more.
No, I don't think Apple is claiming to have invented lcd displays, multitouch, capacitive touch screens, solid state storage, 3G or any of the other core technologies used in an iPhone. I don't know why you think they are.
They're claiming that they introduced what has now become the new standard way of interacting with a mobile device, and are seeking to protect aspects of that design from another large corporation that seeks to profit by emulating their work. I'm mystified as to why people find this surprising or worthy of criticism.
You give them far too much credit. Apple happened to be first in implementing an obvious conclusion in the evolution of computing: combining a true operating system with the features of a PDA and adding a radio. Many people saw this coming a decade earlier; I was one of them.
The reason it happened when it did had to do with the hard work of the scientists and engineers who kept shrinking and creating ever more powerful computing technology, not with the guy who happened to allow his engineers to pursue this obvious conclusion. Steve Jobs was a visionary only when compared to other CEO's, not when compared to the scientists and engineers that really make things happen.