RIM had no incentive, they were trying to lock you into the BB server product and tried to get consumers on it to. The phone was a means to an end.
MS wanted to push Windows. They’d been trying since CE first appeared and it still didn’t take off. As long as Balmer was there why would they do something different? They KEPT DOING IT even with Apple to follow.
Palm was the closest. I guess they might have been my bet. But they were having trouble and had tr legacy of thinking about things the way PalmOS had done things. That might have slowed them down.
Google was just copying RIM. They’d have gone somewhere, but I don’t know it would look anything like today’s smartphones. That may not be a bad thing.
Apple did not move us up just 2 or 3 years. I don’t know how to come up with an exact number, and obviously it’s not something crazy like 20 or 50. But I could see a decade.
How long did it take the rest of the industry to catch up to the Mac from ‘84? How long would it have taken if they didn’t have the Mac to look at?
Paradigm shifts in UIs are hard to predict. Even if you make a good one it can be really hard to break in when something else is successful (even if only adequate).
Apple defined the modern smartphone, and it wasn’t an IBM PC like thing of taking existing parts and just putting them together. It took a ton more work outside the existing molds.