The author is already backing down from the claim that it was "the first real smartphone", as he should. Especially since in its first year, the iPhone was more of a dedicated feature phone, since it lacked native third party apps.
Yes, Apple helped grow public consciousness about smartphones, but long before the iPhone, most everyone had already heard of Palm Pilots and Blackberrys, even if they didn't own one themselves. The knowledge was common enough that a
big star movie was made in 2004 whose plot revolved around a girl finding past girlfriends on her boyfriend's Palm Pilot. It even had two girls "beaming" apps to each other. Again, three years before Apple jumped in.
Smartphone sales had been steadily increasing every year since the turn of the century, and tended to be more popular where there was more 3G.
By 2006, many of us in the US were rocking touchscreen smartphones with 3G, Google Maps, Slingplayer TV casting, the precursor to Google Search, games, apps, and custom homescreens with live data and notifications. Europeans had video calling, even.
People also forget that the iPhone was not an instant mass success in its first year, partly because it was only on AT&T, and partly because it was not subsidized yet.