But telling people who buy Apple that the "only reason they could possibly buy it" is because they only care for fit and finish and not capability. That they buy with a loyalty "handicap", that their loyalty is "misplaced" and implying that they think "it is a globally shared opinion and ultimate truth", that is trolling.

My bad. So 4 years ago it was the best, despite lacking 3G. 4 years later and next to nothing has changed. I honestly think it warrants being labeled "dated".

That "next to nothing" which changed includes GPS, compass, new kinds of motion sensing, retina display, significant CPU, RAM and Processor upgrdes, non-jailbroken availability of bluetooth keyboard, copy/paste and multitasking support, airplay, video recording, video out by cable, installable Apps instead of saved links to webapps, the entire App store, a higher res camera (twice), multiple cameras, MMS, facetime, significant improvement in javascript speed in Safari, in hardware accelerated graphics/GPU, the appearance of the game center, a slew of new Exchange Activesync features and policies for IT departments to manage iOS and on-device encryption which works instead of lying. And it's thinner and lighter and has better quality fit and finish.

The iTunes integration and requirement is for most people a bug, not a feature.

I think for most people it's a feature. The bug is "I have to plug my phone into a music player to activate it?" and "document transfer with iTunes as intermediary sucks". The feature is "I can buy music from iTunes store on my desktop, laptop or phone all using the same account all will get it when I sync. Same with video, which I can then play on AppleTV. My phone has iTunes remote control on it. My apple devices work with each other, no worrying about transcoding and copying and SSH keys and scripts and bodges."

Loyalty to Apple corporation is a mental handicap to everyone not bitten by Steve Jobs RDF. Why on earth would you be loyal to a corporation? I'm loyal to me and my needs, and I want the best. The iPhone isn't.

A corporation is a group of patterns and procedures executed by people. It's the human equivalent of software. The difference between a good corporation and a crummy one is like the difference between Registry Optimizer Spy Cleaner 2000 and Google Chrome.

Loyalty to a corporation means "Dealing with them was helpful and not painful, I predict low hassle in future".

Disloyalty to a corporation means "That was a load of hassle, no thanks to their other products".

Apple's website is nicer than Dells and Microsofts to find what I need. Apple's call centers were fantastic at the times I've called them, Microsofts were terrible and Dells were poor without an expensive contract. Aviva were terrible, Direct Line were great. Barclays were terrible.

It's not loyalty like patriotism where it can never be broken, but "I had good experiences in the past, that's why I will buy their devices in future" absolutely is a valid reason for choosing something over something else and it's not a mental handicap to do so.

Fashion? Are you serious?

Fashion is a valid reason why people choose to buy things, yes. That counters "Absolutely the only reason is if you care about fit and finish". I

The iPhone was a success based on it being the king of the smartphone game, and now it is slowly but surely lagging behind.

What is it lagging behind in that other current phones have and most non-geek users would want? (i.e. not "appears as a disk drive when cabled, which has been around for years and Apple chose not to implement it, but something new and cutting edge")

Unless Apple does something unheard of with the iPhone 5 (including a near-complete rewrite of iOS) they will still be lagging when it comes out. They will release a device with dated software on day one and then they have lost. They will no longer be the better or premium option, they'll just have a glossy look.

Were you watching the iPad 2 release? While everyone else was harping on about Android CPU cores on their tablets, Apple released an incredibly polished, world class piece of software engineering for a pittance of a price (Garage Band tablet edition). You can argue about how useful iPad Garage Band is for writing songs, but it's evidence that Apple isn't resting on laurels unable to innovate and pushing "dated software".

I realize I'm an iPhone owner gone Android-fanatic. Yes. I am biased. But right now, the iPhone objectively has very little appeal unless you are burdened with the loyalty-handicap.

iPhone has incredible appeal. All the stuff it could do yesterday, it can still do today. Unless you specifically want some of the things a competitor phone can do that iPhones can't, it's still a fine choice - and in terms of all the things smartphones collectively do, "what other phones do extra" is a tiny subset.

(Sorry, essay time!)