I think you missed the point, and also, you are the one that needs to go get your facts checked.

The point was how a product or a brand can change the industry its in and others. This has happen many times in the past with other companies, like the Dodge Caravan (minivan).

As for multi-touch, Microsoft has been playing catch up for a long time. The earlier pioneers were Mitsubishi (1980’s) and later others like Philips and what’s his name at MIT with the cool YouTube demos. The big deal here is that Apple successfully brought 5-finger multi-touch in a device that costs less then a $1000 USD. Just like the iPOD, Apple did not invent the MP3, but successfully integrated it into a seemless solution using iTunes for purchases the music, at a time when the Music Industry had no interest and even fought against mp3 files.

So, give the guy a break for noticing a pattern that has repeated itself many times. Remember the fruit colored iMacs in late 1990’s, and shortly after that I could buy a fruit colored George Foreman Grill, and so on and so on…

Last week I asked a friend who has the iPhone 3Gs “how is it”. He couldn’t stop complementing this product. For example he said, I’m in NY and I want to find a business nearby – restaurant, concert, whatever, I can search, click on the number to dial or get instructions how to get there. Then I asked, “how is it as a phone”. Well he said, not that great, you don’t hear that well, speaker is not so good and it is not that great to dial with the touch screen.
His first reaction wasn’t about the phone features, it was about the “other things” he can get from it.

So, a mobile phone is not longer just a phone. Because of the iPhone mobile phones are not evaluated by users as phones but by the services and applications they have and of course…by how cool they are.

Personally I’m using the BlackBerry Bold. Great for email but also not that great as a phone.
See here a video comparing between them http://www.editurl.com/4km

i prefix is probably the only thing attributed to Apple but it started before the iPhone.

Microsoft worked on touch way before iPhone was even discussed in Apple. Just think about all the tablets or MS Surface. Apple worked on touch (Newton) many years before iPhone.

App stores have been around way before Apple. Think about Salesforce.com or App store for Symbian.

Data usage was driven by 3G devices (such as iPhone) but Blackberry still outsells iPhone and is responsible for more data usage. It is unclear how much usage is contributed by modems as well. In any case, At&T built a fast access layer to a bad data network.

I will not even talk about visualization — there are a million products like this every year. Amazingly customers don’t like this, since it typically makes tings hard to use.

Shiny surfaces. Well Walkman had them. And apparently you never saw a woman in your live otherwise you notice a lot of shiny things they typically have.