I agree that the walkman got very little credit in historical importance. But even the walkman wasn't that widespread; on a train in the 80s or 90s really only

I agree that the walkman got very little credit in historical importance. But even the walkman wasn't that widespread; on a train in the 80s or 90s really only a small number of people was using one, as far as I remember. Actual significant changes would have been if, say, an important musical genre was born out of it, or a social movement was enabled by walkmen which is not the case I think. That's why I said "broad adaptation". These days there are situations where everone in a room is looking into the smartphone. So, the iPhone as a coincidental almaganation of already existing, maturing technologies happened to be in the right place at the right time to be considered as a historic turningpoint, without taking anything away from the pre-existing feature phones wiht J2EE app support.