sure, in the way that without black and white tv, no color tv. or without propeller airplane, no jet airplane.
iphone 1g is a clearly marked "revolution" in it's given field. iphone 3g, 3gs, 4, android 1-2.4, win 7, palm pre, etc all fall in line after.
i'm personally going to upgrade to a very capable android in the near future, but i think its silly to not give credit and respect to apple for pushing the envelope and inspiring different but great competitors like android.
You are 100% correct IMO. Apple did build off of the other platforms but they really took it to another level and made smartphones something that mainstream consumers wanted instead of just being for business users.
I think around here, you would find many people...like myself...that feel Android has done the same thing. My wife still has the original Droid. She went to log in to Verizon's website to pay our bill and saw the front page ad about the iPhone. She asked me if that was a "big deal" (she's not really into anything "techie" LOL). I told her that it was a big deal and I asked her if she wanted it for her replacement device. She then asked me "Why? What's it do?" I told her that it had a slightly smaller screen than her Droid (true), no physical keyboard (true but not a knock on Apple...she just insists on having a physical keyboard

), and I explained that the interface was basically just an app drawer (true), with no widgets (true), and it has an outdated notification system (true...yet subjective as to whether it is good or bad). I then told her that it was the most popular smartphone in the world (true), that many people believe it is the best smartphone available with the most polished OS (true) and Apple has the best app store (true...at the present moment).
Anyone disputing what I told her? Well...she said it sounded boring!
Point is that when you look at Android and iOS...Android seems to be more modern. Is Android building off of Apple's successes? Of course!
Apple made the smartphone widely popular...Android made them better (that's just an opinion...but its right!

)
iOS is only on 1 phone, 1 screen size, 1 form factor...and everything about it is locked down (the phone itself, the OS, the App Store, iTunes, etc.). Android is on MANY devices in a variety of form factors with larger screens, smaller screens, landscape qwerty slider, portrait qwerty, etc. Some are locked down more than others but that is done at the phonemanufacturer's discretion and not at the OS level itself (thanks for being THAT guy Motorola

)...but you have many choices and options based on individual personal preference.
Apple made the tablet popular just by loading iOS on to a device with a 10" screen...Google made a tablet specific OS!
Apple made TV better and...okay, well there is still a lot of work to be done there for GoogleTV!
Now, after having sounded like and Android fanboy

...I think Apple
does make great products. I think they are the "right products" for many people (albeit...not for me). I think the animosity comes into play when the iPhone touting fanboys dis anything that isn't made by Apple. That elitist attitude makes people want to throw things that their phone fails to do up in their faces. Look at my avatar!
I really could care less that the iPhone doesn't have flash. I don't care that the iPhone is the #1 most popular phone. If I cared about owning the most popular device, I wouldn't have bought a Droid and then a Fascinate. I wouldn't be upgrading to the T-Bolt or the Bionic (still undecided what I'm getting next...). I just would have bought an iPhone in the past and would be buying another iPhone next (wouldn't that alone be boring?...knowing what phone you are going to buy next the same day you buy a new phone?). Don't forget that many Apple fans saw Android doing exactly what WebOS did...which is FAILING miserably! Google was the underdog and it's always more fun to root for the underdog UNLESS you are one they are trying to beat
Bottom line...Google and Apple are standing pretty tall right now while all other OS manufacturers are fizzling out and many people feel the need to "defend their purchasing decisions" so they don't feel like they made a bad decision. That will happen on both sides of the coin.