i was working in mobile at the time, and it was my job to keep up with the leading tech. i was using a Palm Treo when the iPhone was released, which was arguably the most advanced PDA phone at the time with blackberry being the primary competitor.

i vividly remember watching the announcement from the iphone and being shaken with how the device worked. the fact that you interact with it without a stylus, the highest resolution screen available on a PDA phone, combining the functionality of an ipod, phone, and rich HTML internet browsing device, and the fucking triple layered capacitive multi-touch touch screen were absolutely revolutionary. to say anything else is revisionist history. no one else had anything remotely like it.

and anyone who knew anything about mobiles at the time knew it was revolutionary and that the world was changing that day.