It is definitely NOT the first smartphone that can simulate artificial shallow depth of field. I had an app that could do that in 2009 (using burst mode and changing the focal point).

And it doesn't work like a DSLR (since a DSLR doesn't simulate DoF, it accomplishes it optically). Apple is just using its two cameras to focus on two different points then using software to intersplice those two pictures into one, that isn't real shallow DoF, that is just a software trick (least of all because bokeh will have to be simulated, since it doesn't exist optically).

I'd also like to add that the samples Apple have released to the press look REALLY bad.