Also note “and a first-class web browser” in my compound statement. If you used devices of that era, the browsers sucked at handling most of the web. I knew people who had the previous generation devices (I’m excluding the PalmOS ones I owned since they required a stylus) but nobody used the mobile browser much because it was so unrewarding, and everyone I know replaced them with iPhones due to the web experience.

Yes, the iPhone was nicer to use than what was available in the market the day before it launched.

But the iPhone did _not_ have any first mover advantage. If anything, Apple was late to the party.