You probably have very short memory, since when iphone 1 came out, everybody was shocked from how much better it was above anything else, and how different and better the whole experience was. Touch screen, gyroscope, sleek design compared to pen-based ridiculous slow boxy windows CE machines.

I am far from Apple fan boy and never actually owned any of their products, but boy they really brought mobile revolution to this world. It took competition many years to catch up with that, with great help of Google and their Android. Main reason why their share price skyrocketed during that time.