There's some kind of Zeno's Paradox that applies to competing with Apple.
Android (for example) can start off with ugly hardware that's missing vital components and a half-finished OS and no apps and Apple fans will, quite rightly, point out these flaws. They'll maybe go further and assume the platform will fail because of these things.
Fast-forward a couple of years and Android sales are soaring, often despite these issues, which while mostly solved, may not have trickled down to the actual Android using masses yet.
You would assume that with that rate of change, it's only a matter of time before Android will surpass iPhone which doesn't seem to have changed quite as much. Instead you find that now the reasons they will never pass Apple are actually subjective and non-quantifiable notions of elegance, emotion and class (also, oddly, the ability to get geeks lining up to be the first to buy mass-produced devices sold in the tens of millions per year). And despite butt-ugly hardware and software not stopping Android in its 1.5 days, the near imperceptible (if not actually preferable) differences between 2.3 and iOS4 will forever hold them back.
Android (for example) can start off with ugly hardware that's missing vital components and a half-finished OS and no apps and Apple fans will, quite rightly, point out these flaws. They'll maybe go further and assume the platform will fail because of these things.
Fast-forward a couple of years and Android sales are soaring, often despite these issues, which while mostly solved, may not have trickled down to the actual Android using masses yet.
You would assume that with that rate of change, it's only a matter of time before Android will surpass iPhone which doesn't seem to have changed quite as much. Instead you find that now the reasons they will never pass Apple are actually subjective and non-quantifiable notions of elegance, emotion and class (also, oddly, the ability to get geeks lining up to be the first to buy mass-produced devices sold in the tens of millions per year). And despite butt-ugly hardware and software not stopping Android in its 1.5 days, the near imperceptible (if not actually preferable) differences between 2.3 and iOS4 will forever hold them back.