Maybe, but I’m not certain we would have converged on a single form factor. Only Apple had the retail, marketing, software, hardware capabilities, discipline, and incentives to throw everything behind the minimalistic design and single form factor and turn it into a hit.
Everyone else was splitting their efforts across multiple form factors and relying on carrier stores to sell their phones, and I don’t think that was going to revolutionize anything.
It's strange to think it was only 4 years after the initial release that he died.
I remember the first application that people were hyped about was Google Maps. The Nokia phone couldn't run that, and any map available there was much harder to use. But the iPhone only really took off after people could install any kind of application there.
I'm not sure what model you are talking about, maybe the S60, third edition. It is hard to get any background on it.
I'd like to say that companies missed out on the fact that a web browser would be really sellable, but it's clearly all about tying everyone to their platform, and more importantly their store.
I know a lot of people basically who were basically saying "finally"