The way I think of this is if Apple had to invent the smartphone when only desktop and laptop computers existed. No dumbphones. No mp3 players. No other second

The way I think of this is if Apple had to invent the smartphone when only desktop and laptop computers existed. No dumbphones. No mp3 players. No other second rate smartphones. The budget would far exceed $250M if that was the case, since so many of those things had resulted in supply chains for commodity parts that could, worst case, be modified slightly to fit Apple's needs. (Not that they didn't invent anything in order to produce the iPhone -- IIRC the glass screen in particular was a new feature not seen on any device before. Also they did a lot of legwork themselves e.g. the anodized aluminum device body that came from previous work on ipod / macbook).