You do recall that when the iPhone came out we already had Blackberry, HTC, Windows Mobile, Nokia already making smart phones with touch screens and apps right?
Sure the experience was terrible, but that's the same play here. Apple generally takes a technology space which is a little early and poorly done by others, and ships a great experience across hardware, software, and ecosystem to capture a market.
The elephant in the room is that by the time Apple came out with iPhone, everyone else had a mobile phone because there are clear benefits of ownining a mobile phone. Those phones as you say were not great, and iPhone was absolutely revolutionary in that case so we agree here.
But pretty much nobody has a VR headset right now (or at least IRL people that I know), so not sure if a normal person will see a benefit of owning this kind of device.
Sure the experience was terrible, but that's the same play here. Apple generally takes a technology space which is a little early and poorly done by others, and ships a great experience across hardware, software, and ecosystem to capture a market.