> technology wasn’t there

Until Apple developed it. Those early iPhones employed a lot of tricks to squeeze usability, battery life, and performance out of underpowered devices.

Prior smartphone attempts mostly applied PC-centric concepts to the device, it’s no surprise they ended up failing.

Microsoft never had a chance because Apple is the last vertical computer company (OS plus hardware) a survivor from the 1980s when there were many vertical American computer companies. Even Apple would have been dead if Steve Jobs had not come back with the Next operating system.

You can see the failure of Microsoft in their performance in mobile when the playing field was level Microsoft and Intel have trouble competing, you can also see it in the Surface computer efforts Microsoft has no clue.

It’s too bad SGI, Sun, Digital, Amiga, Acorn didn’t make it because you can see many elements within Apple OS from that bygone era in the hardware and software.

Also, capacitative/multitouch touchscreens were ridiculously expensive until Apple made orders at a scale large enough to bring the technology costs down.