It tends to bring this pointless debate to a quick end.
Edit: found them.
Before: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/samsu...
After: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/samsu...
Not really.. all the before photos are for keypad phones. All the after photos are for touchscreen phones. I would argue that if you are going to design a pure touchscreen phone, you are likely to end up with an 'iPhone-like' design. Case in point is the LG Prada which was unveiled before the iPhone.
Sure it had an impact on design, but given a couple of years, they would have gotten there(hardware-wise).
I'm saying that because if you look at the years, the first one goes:
2004 - 2005 - 2006 - iPhone (2007)
And the second one goes:
iPhone (2007) - 2010 - 2011
If they want to prove the point they should not be disingenuous and show some Samsung phones from 2008 and 2009. I doubt that Samsung transitioned from the old design to the new one instantly in 2007, via their magic iPhone cloning machine.
Also, the iPhone was more of a forcing function than anything. If you look at a longer term evolution, screens were getting bigger and bigger and the keyboard smaller and smaller. The iPhone shaved 5-10 years from that evolution by shaming complacent phone producers into moving forward at a decent pace.
Parent post didn't say the phones looked the same. The iPhone refined a lot of existing functionality.
Yes, they are both rectangles. But there were massive differences aside from the capacitive touch.