>>Given the difficulty of entering the mobile handset market, and the inertia of most players, I'm just not sure we would have broken out of the rut. I think w

>>Given the difficulty of entering the mobile handset market, and the inertia of most players, I'm just not sure we would have broken out of the rut. I think we might agree on that? I guess my main thesis rests on the idea that an iPhone is more like a tiny computer than it's like a circa-2007 cell phone. It was easier for Apple to make a tiny Mac with phone capabilities than it would have been for a handset manufacturer to retrofit PC-like functionality onto their handsets. Apple was already the master of the Mac ecosystem, which they could leverage however​ they wanted. Handset manufacturers would have had to acquire a computer platform or partner with a computer company (which, I guess, is the story of Android).