Arguably the iPhone is just a recent iteration of the typewriter, with computers and word processors and personal computers, since morphed into laptops, increasingly sophisticated variations on the original typewriter.
Put voice commands, and eventually thought commands, in as input devices and you’ll have simply added a little more innovation.
Way back, the typewriter was a refinement upon the pen, the stylus, etc.
I think the iPhone was very much a status symbol; like a wristwatch was back when they were mechanical. The glamor is gone from it. Just like the mechanical watch gave way to the cheap electronic watch. It was no longer worth the price difference to get a mechanical watch when you could have an equal or better product for a fraction of the money. And, like the attempt to make mechanical watches sell as luxuries by adding diamonds and gold, I saw a phone case that cost more than my house and cars together. (It was for sale in Saudi Arabia.)
As far as iPhones go, the bloom is off the rose. It’s just a commodity now. iPhone pricing in China has fallen precipitously as a result. (China’s markets are a bellwether for status symbols.)
So...they are pretty much your finger in the sand. And that still works on dusty football fields around America.
Instead of setting the metal letters individually into a box (typeset), they set the letters on individual spikes tied to buttons. Instead of rolling ink on the letters and pressing onto paper, the letters strike a rolling inkpad in front of the paper.
The typewriter was the first "desktop" word processor. Wrap it in a plastic case, and it was the first portable laptop, too.
-PJ