Because nothing that you've offered as a counter-argument has anything to do with how simple it was to use the device. The vast majority of users, at the time the iPhone came out, didn't care about "App Stores" or ad-blocking or anything else and none of those things detracted from the simplicity of the device.
Unless you have some kind of argument that actually addresses the premise that the iPhone was successful because it was the easiest smartphone on the market to use and had high discoverability, you're going to keep missing the point by responding with features that you wish it had when it launched.
The vast majority of users of Apple products don't care about feature X, until the Apple product gets such feature. Then, suddenly, due to some magic miracle, these features do matter. We're talking about basic functionality the current devices had such as capability-based security, App Store, ad blocking, cut and paste.
The only major innovation the iPhone was using, was a capacitive touch UI. iOS wasn't polished, as it lacked many basic features. Yet the UI was good enough and simple to use. Nothing I wrote here above is in contradiction with each other. The only thing you appear to disagree on is the importance of these missing features. If they had these features from the beginning, perhaps Apple would've released too late, and the market would be saturated already (as touchscreen devices were coming to the masses regardless).
Unless you have some kind of argument that actually addresses the premise that the iPhone was successful because it was the easiest smartphone on the market to use and had high discoverability, you're going to keep missing the point by responding with features that you wish it had when it launched.