I would perhaps lean more towards the idea of the app delaying the revolution than the device but the two go hand in hand.

The launch of the app store allowed all the negative, addictive smartphone experiences to escape the desktop and be everywhere. Phones were then designed primarily as consumption portals instead of communication devices.

Where the smartwatch should have become the inevitable endpoint of the quest for ever smaller comms devices it instead became an accessory to the portal in your pocket.