The iPhone had 2 interesting things going for it. Everyone had been begging for an iPod phone for years before this happened. Apple had been working on the iPad since the Newton failed and the iPhone was a combination between iPod phone and iPad.

All glass all touch screens were not a thing people thought they wanted before Apple made a really compelling (and pleasing) device.

AR has been a thing for years, but hasn’t garnered the popularity or utility that MP3s and phones ever had. QR codes being the possible exception and only since most phones handle them natively at this stage.

It’s possible that AR just hasn’t had a good enough UX to break the “cool experiment bro” uses imagined so far (because of screen/camera/movement limitations). It’ll be interesting to see if Apple has managed to revolutionize the experience enough to imagine new and more widely needed AR uses or not.