It's undeniably true that Apple shipped the first good multitouch implementation on a handset. But there were lots of phones with very capable browsers, and a comparatively successful company (Opera) selling them for years before Apple started work on the iPhone.

Which of course is the whole point: ideas are items of trade. Someone thinks of something and someone else improves it. That's the way innovation works. Apple has surely done more of it than any other single company, but they've also, like everyone else, "stolen" far more than they invented themselves.

Claiming that they have some special ground with the iPhone is just a laughable, juvenile flame war. I wish these would stop.