capacitive touch screen

The first phone with a capacitive touch screen was the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada the iPhone was built with the technology that was around at the time.

People credit the iPhone with creating smartphones but much like Tesla's the tech was ready and they launched at the right time. I guess Apple patented multitouch slowing down adoption of multitouch on laptops by decades, but I'd credit Apple with that not Jobs.