> A problem that I've come to notice with a lot of tech people is they either don't notice or don't value good implementation
That may be because Apple's implementation was absolutely lacking. The first iPhone was a vibrant, shiny feature phone disguised as a smartphone. They put their bet towards marketing and fashion, not tech and revolution - which paid off for them, as it turned out that was enough. Don't be surprised that techies aren't impressed by that though. In fact, I don't think the iPhone would be so successful if it didn't come out from Apple even if it was exactly the same as it was - it would likely find its niche, but it wouldn't be a significant threat to Nokia and others.
(actually, the real iPhone wasn't that much of a threat either, it was Android that actually killed Nokia - or made it kill itself to be exact)
> There was nothing like the iPhone, and now everything is like the iPhone.
Many things were either like the iPhone already or were heading towards being like the iPhone. Apple's implementation advantage comes from the fact that it was designed from scratch as a touch-based interface, while existing platforms were only slowly iterating towards that, but they were getting there regardless. Some existing players, like Nokia, had teams that were already going there, and other teams that were actively sabotaging those efforts, which obviously left the door for Apple wide open.
Apple's implementation sure was good enough, because marketing alone would quickly dry off otherwise. It wasn't revolutionary though. I'm certain that we would have very similar trends too had Apple not gone into mobile phone market at all. Maybe we wouldn't end up in a world where restricted walled gardens are the expected state of things on computers that we carry with ourselves all the time. Or maybe it would be worse, who knows. It wouldn't, however, be much different in how we interact with those devices, because writings were on the wall and Apple just happened to enter the market with a new thing at the right time with enough preexisting clout, as evidenced by multiple companies working on implementing Apple's "revolutions" at the same time as Apple, or even beating them by years in some cases.