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You just contradicted yourself: "it's hard to say that other companies didn't rip off the 'idea' of the iPhone." and "Of course, the 'idea' of the iPhone wasn't

You just contradicted yourself: "it's hard to say that other companies didn't rip off the 'idea' of the iPhone." and "Of course, the 'idea' of the iPhone wasn't new either". If the idea wasn't new, then other companies weren't ripping off the iPhone's idea. I'm not attempting to detract from the fact that Apple executed on the iPhone almost perfectly. Realizing that the market was ready, and then providing a product that delivers on that analysis is what Jobs should be known for, not this notion that he invented multitouch devices.

gnaffle 15y ago
Maybe I should have written that they ripped off Apples _implementation_ of the idea. Or maybe they were just "inspired". The right question to ask is this: Would multiple capacitive multitouch phones similar to the iPhone have been introduced in 2007 / 2008 if the iPhone had never launched? Some people seem to think so, but I see no evidence that other companies were working on similar technology / user interfaces at the time, and plenty of evidence that they were caught off guard.