I think the argument is that the iPhone set the trend for what all phones looked and felt like (large, touchscreen-based devices that can run third party applications).

Saying that the iPhone is a small minority of phones is similar to saying that Tesla will have a small minority of vehicle sales, which is undoubtedly true, but doesn't portray the reality that a ton of other car manufacturers will be selling electric cars.

Well a huge fraction of the world is still on shitty $20 keyboard phones that are technically running Android but are more like feature phones in terms of capability and specs. You can't really argue that those are descended from the iPhone in any meaningful way.

Oh definitely. I think the point is that the trend in automobile sales is toward a vast majority of new sales being electric cars, just as the trend in phones is towards smartphones[1], and those smartphones overwhelmingly resemble the first iPhone.

1: http://qz.com/418769/theres-still-plenty-of-money-in-dumb-ph... (disclaimer: it was really just one of the first results when I searched for a comparison of feature phone vs smartphone market share)

I think it's a fair analogy: most people don't have iPhones, but a huge portion of people have a smartphone. Tesla doesn't need to be the only source of electric cars, there are plenty more mainstream options.

True, but the iPhone strongly influenced nearly every phone that came after it. It changed the industry.

iPhone ushered in a wave of capacitive touch smartphones. GP posits not that Tesla is the future, but that all-electric is.