>Then why didn't they patent them, given that Apple always thoroughly and excessively patents stuff when they get the chance?

Because "invented the modern X", doesn't mean created X as a raw technology (to patent it), but created the version of X most people actually care about from them on...

That said, they do have tons of patents on the iPhone and iPad, and on phone/tablet design. Not to mention they've made the Newton already, a defining 90s tablet...

As for the inventor of the smartphone, that was IBM, with the Simon Personal Communicator. Do you care much for those devices in 2020? Didn't think so, like I don't see people buying TV sets from the inventor of TV, or clothes from the inventor of clothing...

As someone who uses a smartphone mostly for browsing the web and who hates installing another app, I just can't see the big innovation here.

If however, you're a developer selling apps, then I can see your point. Apple took the business model of game consoles and brought it to smartphones. Most people love it, developers love it, and that's probably why they call it an "innovation" even though it isn't.

>As someone who uses a smartphone mostly for browsing the web and who hates installing another app, I just can't see the big innovation here.

Well, as someone who mostly likes raw meat from animals I kill, I also don't see the big innovation with this "cooking" thing.

But I hear it's popular with many....

>Apple took the business model of game consoles and brought it to smartphones.

They also added the multi-touch all-screen UI that everybody else copied immediately, gestures, various sensors and capabilities, native apps, proper web browsing (and not the crappy "mobile" experience of smartphones of yore), and several other things besides. Plus things like the ability to listen your voice messages in your order, or send text messages without the SMS/MMS toll via the same app you use for regular text messaging.

And the first iPhone didn't even had third party apps. People demanded for it to get an app store...

Also true when the iPhone appeared: most people didn't have any kind of smartphone, and the apps they could run were at best Java mobile crap. There were smartphones but they were not as popular, and not as user friendly (I had a few, e.g. Sony ones, there were Nokia etc. Nothing compared to the iPhone or the "modern style" smartphone. And most people had a regular phone or -if they did business- a BB). After the iPhone everybody wanted to get into the smartphone thing...