Andreas, what a delightful take on the topic 👏👏 I see the creative process this way:

First, arrange a set of traits, characteristics, and particularities that never have been arranged before. Second, come up with a creation (a product, a service, or whatever) that matches those characteristics.

Meaning, you first come up with the "solution" you want to arrive at. And then, the creative path consists of trial-and-error your way towards that result.

Some examples you mentioned illustrate this point clearly. ETEN combined the characteristics of "restaurant" and "pandemic-friendly". The iPhone largely combined "smartphone", "intuitiveness", and "finger-controlled" which is something that had never been done before.

In other words, getting out of the routine by forcing new perspectives on what already exists. Cheers mate!