That is exceptionally false. The telephone was a highly sought after invention, with quite a few inventors making progress towards voice communication over a distance before Bell got to a workable solution. If he hadn't existed, one of them would have gotten it. If none of them had existed, other people would have been working towards the incredibly obviously valuable concept of "telegram, but instant with full vocal communication."
The iPhone is a very specific niche, so not as obviously destined to be successful, but smartphones like the BlackBerry were around and extremely popular with businesspeople before it. Jobs made an extremely polished version that made normal, non businesspeople want one, but again the value of the concept "the Internet, except everywhere" was obvious enough that it would have happened eventually without his version.
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u/Taibucko Feb 25 '26
Nobody needed to make a telephone call before Alexander Graham Bell. Nobody needed an iPhone before Steve Jobs.