>iPhone wasn't a revolutionary new idea for which there was no demand... its just that Apple knew that the time was right and that they could technically pull i

>iPhone wasn't a revolutionary new idea for which there was no demand... its just that Apple knew that the time was right and that they could technically pull it off. They certainly didn't just engineer the iPhone on a wing and a prayer hoping that they might figure out a business plan one day. This also applies to Blackberry and Nokia, but they failed miserably. The reason why we don't see them on this list it's because they were well established companies, and they could afford failure. That's the main difference with a startup, you pull off a Maemo, a Newton or a Virtual Boy and that's it, you are done. And let's not forget about the ROKR E1. You make it look like the iPhone's success was a very predictable and obvious thing, but just take a look at the reviews from 2007.