Well, there was that. There was also a leader with a specific vision for how to design a user-friendly product, leading a huge team of highly qualified software engineers, and having the willingness to spend years of time and boatloads of cash to get it right.

Steve Jobs' design philosophy may not have been one that appealed to all customers (it certainly doesn't to me), but he had the will and the means to create the device that matched his ideal. The iPhone is, to a great extent, the ideal form of one man's vision of what a phone should be. And you've gotta give it props for that.