The capacitive touch screen and its features were the one thing that catalyzed the revolution. OS-wise, many competing phones were more high performance/low latency, and the app store didn't exist for years.

So LG could have become Apple but for some poor UI decisions and worse marketing - they released their own capacitive-screen phone, the LG Prada, a month _before_ Apple, but cheaped out on the UI development: no on-screen keyboard, and not using the touch screen to its potential with scroll/page-turn gestures.