umm. The first generation iPhone sold around 6 million units in the first year (at a good profit margin and with Apple getting a cut of subscriber revenue). It was Apple's first phone, and only sold in the US. Dismal failure? No. Was the subsequent model better? Yes.

The iPod was also quite successful (and essentially a market creator) even before Windows support was added, although I don't have any numbers handy to back this up...

We'll see about the tablet. I'm intrigued.

That really isn't the way it turned out. Before DSL and cable gobbled up most of the dialup market, the vast majority of Internet users were customers of ISPs that did *not* own the lines connecting them to their users. The telcos generally weren't successful ISPs at the consumer level until after dialup began to fade (although many were successful in selling upstream transit to ISPs in addition to phone lines).