Yes, people wil point out that Phone X had a touchscreen, Phone Y had a browser, Phone Z had something else. But the iPhone was the first phone to bring them all together in one package.
I used to run an Apple user forum way back before the iPhone was released, when all we had were the occasional rumour that Apple 'might be' thinking of bringing out a phone.
Smartphones are so ubiquitous now that I reckon people forget just how much excited anticipation there was at the prospect that Apple would do for the phone what they'd recently done for computers [remember how revolutionary the coloured iMacs seemed at the time?] and portable music [the iPod]. Back then no-one was enthusiastic about their phones. They were just some utilitarian gadget you carried, like a wallet, a pen or your car keys and there was an almost messianic belief that, if Apple brought out a phone it would be an equally miraculous device.
The launch of the iPhone actually kick-started [for better or worse] the promotion of the formerly humble phone to the ranks of 'gadgets you dreamt of owning'