Amazing that Apple survived, at all. Equally weird that, despite inflation, Apple's cheapest ever computer is the current $599 Mac mini.
They coasted on the success of the Apple II for a long time. It's difficult to overstate how popular they were in American schools. For over a decade, "a computer" was an Apple II.
They didn't stop making the IIe until November 1993.
It was the BBC Micro of the USA.
The hype! I can feel it now, despite not ever having lived during that time. Damn, that gives a good tangible vibe of how strong that success was. Haha, thanks for the comment!
Bill Gate said it himself, there where other folks that had much better technology but the luck just worked in Microsoft's favor. That and a lot of anti-competitive behavior.
A bit the same with Apple, there were many others that had the opportunity but it just never worked out due to the flows of the market.
I'd argue it's the $429 iPhone SE [1].
Who are you quoting?
If you insist on including the iPhone, you might as well include the $39 Airpods case, or the $9 lightning to headphone jack dongle.
Philosophically, yes. Practically, even a locked-down iPhone can do vastly more than a general-purpose computer could in the 1980s. (Particularly when you consider it has access to VMs on the web and now emulators.)