Its success might also be linked to the long gap between the announcement of Apple iPhone and its availability. In addition, the HTC Touch is not exclusively linked to a carrier, so its potential customer reservoir is larger than for the iPhone.
This new business model for advanced mobile phones that Apple is trying to develop/impose to carriers might be in the future the main breakdown for iPhone development. Apple might be willing to reproduce with the iPhone the same ecosystem than between iPod and iTunes. However, Cupertino created the market for digital music player and online shops, while mobile business was already on place before the iPhone. So this business model might simply not be valid for this market. By locking the iPhone tightly to defined carriers, and not making application development an easy process, Apple might be preventing the real growth of the device and its broad adoption.
