The iPhone success is due to Apple. It's not like the iPhone had great hardware or a great OS. The first iteration was pathetic compared to an N95 8GB.

Before the numerous Apple fanbois jump on me now, I must say thet most issues are fixed now. But the first iteration used to drop calls, didn't have MMS, didn't support 3G, had a very limited (still have) browser where flash, silverlight, javascript didn't work or didn't work well, had a horrible camera, no flash, crashed often and was fairly slow.

But people still thought it was much better than any other phone out there, including HTC, Blackberry, and Nokia. It's still happening today. People were talking about facetime like it was alien technology sent from the future.

Apple have built an image were all they touch is gold. Look at the Ipod (original ones). People who bought them used to strut around as if they had something special. It was just an Mp3 player..better and cheaper solutions existed..but an Ipod was Apple.

The 3G was fairly good. The 3GS was..umm ridiculous. Same design, same OS, just a few minor changes.. And I feel that iPhone 4 took a bit step back in compared with the iPhone 3G. But that's my opinion.