[Brightcolours]

The thing is - Apple was never the first (in terms of product, not patents) except for the first "home computer" and, yes, the first PDA (and then they abandoned it for a decade).
Whether you call that copying or "inspired by" ... well ...
As I mentioned, they were several times the first to transform a good idea into a great one that appeals to a bigger audience. I never disputed that and I never disputed that they have great products. I have a Macbook Pro and an iPad Pro - and I used to own an iphone (3G and 4). But I don't treat it as a religion nor do I desperately defend it like some people (you?) do.

Yes, Apple abandoned the PDA and since the Blackberry and iPhone the PDA is extinct.

Apple was the first with, to name a few:

• Home computer
  
• Personal computer with GIU
  
• Postscript Laserprinter (Adobe's PostScript pushed in the right direction by... Steve Jobs)
  
• Pioneered Multimedia on personal computers with QuickTime (1991)
  
• QuickTime VR
  
• PDA
  
• 1st consumer digital (colour) camera (QuickTake 100, developed with Kodak), 1994
  
• 1st smartphone operated on the screen, not with buttons, by your fingers (iPhone), basically what we now all use and did not exist before the iPhone.
  

Of course, there are many more technical software related inventions done at Apple over the decades.
I am not defending anything desperately, I am just countering unnuanced, incorrect statements.