The most revolutionary thing Apple did four years ago is introduce a touch interface for the phone that in many aspects works better than physical keyboards.
Sales figures of all kinds of smartphones since, shows a trend that a good touch interface is essential for a successful product.
So yes, "copying" that choice is a good idea.

The other revolutionary thing that Apple did was three years ago: The introduction of an application store that worked so easily that people actually use it.
For a lot of people an application store is what defines a smartphone nowadays: being able to easily add functionality.
So yes, if you want to be successful in the smartphone market, you need an applications store and "copy Apple".

The fact that Nokia now uses a similar packaging is totally unimportant, and probably mostly a cost saving method.
The icon view for applications is a lot older than iPhone, so not really "a copy of Apple", but you are correct that Apple uses it to define the iPhone interface in imagery, since it uses it as the "home screen".