The author severely overestimates how much of a risk the iPhone was for Apple, and how unexpectedly it changed the way we interact with mobile devices. He is forgetting the iPod Touch, which was Apple's "concept" model (that actually shipped). If the response to the iPod Touch wasn't as positive as it was, the iPhone may have never been released, or would've been delayed until a few more iterations of the iPod Touch…
But the iPhone came out before the iPod Touch!
I'm having the unpleasant sensation of my neurons rearranging themselves to account for the realisation that my memory of the relevant events was so fundamentally incorrect. I do apologise.
I'm fairly new to commenting on HN, is it bad form to delete my comment to avoid the downvotes? EDIT: just realised that I don't even have that option anymore.