They invented the app ecosystem, which is far more important than just inventing a phone. Without Apple, the application market would still be controlled by Sprint and AT&T and Verizon.
Not defending Apple or attacking it, just pointing out the facts.
> And how is Apple's walled app store any better than the alternative of at&t controlled app store?
I don't know if you've used an iPhone, but do you really think AT&T's walled garden would have anything approaching the quality of the best apps on the App Store?
He or she is probably just young. No one who was there would ask a question like that, even rhetorically.
Sadly, people have forgotten how much life sucked for mobile developers before the iPhone. Apple's contribution is reflected in various peoples' prejudices and agendas, but not in history books. Only Nixon could go to China, and only Jobs could have stared down AT&T from a position of weakness.
I'm not an Apple partisan, and I'm definitely not going to defend the concept of locking a general-purpose computing platform away from its own users, but I'll always give him credit for that.
They invented the app ecosystem, which is far more important than just inventing a phone. Without Apple, the application market would still be controlled by Sprint and AT&T and Verizon.
Not defending Apple or attacking it, just pointing out the facts.