One other thing that played a huge part is how Jobs beat AT&T over the head to provide an unlimited data plan. We don't think much of this today, but in those days data was expensive. It put a huge cognitive load on any kind of data operation. Merely turning on the data modem was a "will I be able to eat through payday" kind of decision. It was very stressful! And suddenly Jobs comes along with the cool new phone AND takes away this barrier. Now you could have data always on, not worry about how big the app was you were about to download. You could browse the web and go to any website, with images turned on, without fear.

I remember the day this was announced and even though I never bought into the Apple ecosystem I remember feeling that it was a game changing move.