no, those pda where at a price point. Jobs’ gamble and vision was that people would pay at multiples of that price point if the device was useful
To rephrase it, the issue wasn’t fundamentally technological it was an ingrained assumption at Ms, palm, Nokia that the price needs to be below x and Apple challenged that assumption in one risky Vision
Straight from wikipedia: "the device would require a triple layered capacitive multi-touch touch screen, a very new and advanced technology at the time."
The innovation was making the screen the only interface you needed, by pushing the boundaries of what it could do. There was no way to make screens do anything like this in 2001, when PDAs were around. By 2005, the tech was still advanced but mature enough to exploit it, and Apple did it to the fullest.
While I couldn’t find (while zapping some food) who innovated the screen on the iPhone 1 I’m not sure Apple did and neither did you prove otherwise (burden aside)
To rephrase it, the issue wasn’t fundamentally technological it was an ingrained assumption at Ms, palm, Nokia that the price needs to be below x and Apple challenged that assumption in one risky Vision