Yes this. I had an O2 XDA II for a bit which was a smartphone. Before that a palm Treo 180G. Also a smartphone.the Windows phones of the era were dying in uselessness. RIM was still using a side mounted wheel on their basic phones. The interface and approach to making the smart phone usable was so radically different that yes, they pretty much can claim to have invented it. Sure, there were items on the market that sorta kinda maybe looked the same, but the holistic approach was so well I prime Ted that it was a radical departure in the experience of using a phone.
What Apple did was produce something that wasn’t an absolute heap of dung to use like those were.
Also at the same time Android was coming on the scene and what it basically consisted of was a blackberry rip off. Until Google ripped off apple’s touch interface.
I think all the innovation Apple did was in the interface really. It was vastly different to anything else.
Also Unix and NeXTstep on a phone basically was awesome ?