Did "consumption" create the iPhone?
Chicken and egg.
Consumption can create a need that didn’t exist before. The PDA and basic cell phone created a need for the smart phone. Also, the need for a music player created the ipod which in turn created the Iphone. The iphone may not exist if it weren’t for the Ipod and the huge business that it created.
I got into a big argument with someone here on FR a while back about the same subject, he just could not stop insisting that consumption is what makes an economy. Those of us who grew up on the farm walking behind a plow know very well that you must produce BEFORE you can consume. You can easily thrive by consuming half what you produce but you cannot make it for one day by consuming twice what you produce unless you can borrow the difference and only an idiot still believes he can borrow his way to a surplus.
Creating doesn’t drive the economy. There were touch screen smartphones before the iPhone but nobody consumed them. Really the economy is a circle, it starts where you want to start looking at it. Kind of like the food chain.