I'll probably get slammed for this, but common sense says a lot of company's copied the iPhone. Everyone in the industry changed their design and OS's once they saw what a success the iPhone was.
This is pretty standard for any industry. You follow the leader.
in a sense you are right, but also wrong.
depends by if you mean "copy" or "inspired"
There were radical shifts in the entire mobile market around that time. Everyone wanted a slice of the Smartphone pie. RIM was #1 king with some of the earliest smartphones that offered most of what people wanted in a smart phone. A software platform that was open so that applications could be installed. messaging and communications. Ability to play multimedia. RIM just marketted smartphones as a business device. They never saw the other side, that the average consumer wanted the same things.
There were other manufacturers who were coming up with similar concepts at the same time that apple was. Remember, Nobody builds their technology in a vacuum. Everyone, Apple, Samsung and everyone else built their technologies based on directions that the consumer market was driving them.
At the time, ti was making a move towards full screen, touch enabled devices that could incorporate PDA like activities, alongside Multimedia. Most of the mobile manufacturers were releasing regularly new devices that moved more and more towards this ideal. Remember, Apple is actually a relative new comer into the Cellular Market. They were building their first phone. They did not have the ability to come up with everything from the ground up on their own. Most of the technology that was in the iPhone's first iteration was developed by other companies and manufacturers (and still is believe it or not). Because of this, Apples phone was absolutely not built in a vacuum.
While it's purely conjecture, You can guess (assume whatever) that competitors were also coming to the same conclusions, with similar strategies that apple was also going towards. The Iphone was a great device, but it didnt win everyone over because it did things nobody else was doing. Apple was riding very Very high off the popularity of their ipod line. I am willing to bet most first generation iphones that were sold, were done so, because of the ipod history and popularity. Apple was known as a company with exceptional industrial design (and still are), and this helped push sales.
But Apple (and it's fanboys) claim that everything iphone was completely their idea, invention and that anyone else coming close to similar concepts clearly copied is a bit of a stretch. Thats why When apple keeps going litigation happy, it's frustrating. This doesn't force innovation. Innovation doesn't come from a vacuum. innovation comes from evolution of a concept. You couldn't make LTE without 3G already having been invented. You couldn't make MP3 without Digital music, and you couldn't make the car without the wheel.
and now i'm rambling. too much coffee.