1st generation apple products are never for the masses. If you want to see what Vision will be in a few years, look at their other product trajectories.
Lots and lots of people were waiting for the iPhone 3G model and skipped the first one.
Considering it's the only model with the cell tech in the name (there's no iPhone 5G), I think even Apple knew the first model was a ground laying device, not the "pave the world" model the subsequent versions would become. They still weren't even committed to the app store yet.
While that is true, I would also say it was a little bit special. There are many reasons why, but I imagine one is, people loved their iPods. When iPhone came out, you now had both your phone and your iPod in a single device. I do think without iTunes and iTunes integration, iPhone may have been a flop.
Jobs stated goal for the first gen iPhone was to have 1% market share in the phone market in the first year. They barely made it. It definitely was a raging success
iPhone one was $500 when the average phone was $200. It was an upmarket device that eventually got cultural acceptance and reduced in price when produced at mass market scale.
