[hahaiamatwork]

There's only really a couple of points in your post that are valid, so I'll go through each point you made.

1. Phones with the same class of processor have been available for some time now. Tegra 2 is a dual core 1ghz SoC and there are 1.2 and 1.5ghz dual cores from competitors, with a quad core 1.5ghz due from Nvidia within the next few months.

2. The camera may be excellent, but previous phones have applied some bad automatic settings to this, making adjusting of photos result in unnecessary detail loss.

3. iTunes and the App Store I won't argue against, but it's worthy of note now that competitors are approaching Apple with these features.

4. As far as the AI goes, I doubt it will ever see significant widespread adoption. Nobody has yet been able to give me a few good solid examples of use outside of 'play this album' and 'set a reminder for x'. Facetime was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of video chatting. I think I have used it once.

5. The general point about carriers is almost certainly stated by an American. iPhones have been available on many carriers in many countries, and still Android is advancing significantly.

6. You're ignoring the significant downsides to the iOS ecosystem. For example, if you purchase apps, you would be better off with an Android. Why? Because purchasing those apps on an iPhone means that the associated cost of switching to any other platform increases by the value of those apps. That cannot be justified as a 'good thing'.

[reidmain]

You're ignoring the significant downsides to the Android ecosystem. For example, if you purchase apps, you would be better off with an iPhone. Why? Because purchasing those apps on an Android phone means that the associated cost of switching to any other platform increases by the value of those apps. That cannot be justified as a 'good thing'.

[qweq]

moron

[reidmain]

Care to clarify why?

[moultano]

I'm not understanding what you are saying. Any Android app you purchase can be installed on all of your Android devices. Would you mind rephrasing so I understand?

[reidmain]

Well any iOS app you purchase can be installed on all of your iOS devices.

UNLESS, this is about how you can ONLY buy stuff from Apple's App Store and then I can understand the point being made. But jailbroken iPhone users are such a small percentage (as are rooted Android phone users) so I'm looking at this from the average consumers' perspective.

If they buy 100 apps on their Android device they are then leery about switching to iOS because they lose all those apps and vice-versa.

[hahaiamatwork]

You are incorrect. Android applications can be compiled against purely Android libraries, or Google's additional libraries. The ones which do not depend on Google's services specifically can be used anywhere you like.

For example: There's a company running Android apps on iOS now.

[reidmain]

How am I incorrect? I'm referring to the idea of an average consumer buying 100 apps for their Android device and then being leery about switching to iOS because they would lose those apps and vice-versa.

Also, what company are you referring to?

[mahyarm]

Facetime is too integrated into an iPhone that it's easy to miss that it even exists. I've talked to people who use video chat apps on their iPhone 4, and didn't even realize that facetime exists, or how to use it. You also can't get a list of facetime contacts from the phone, you have to memorize if your contact has an iPhone on that phone number or email address or press the small facetime button on the person's contact detail screen on the bottom right corner and see if it will work. On top of that you can't use it on 3G network, which kills most of the use cases for it.

[mikeash]

I used Siri quite a bit when it was still just a free app, and I found it to be pretty useful. Real-world stuff I actually used it for include:

1. Checking the weather forecast for a particular day. Just ask something like, "What's the weather tomorrow?" You can give it a specific city, or it will just use your current location. This is generally faster than using a weather site or app for places you haven't already set up a shortcut for.

2. Checking on movie times and availability while on the go. Just ask something like "movies near here" and it shows you what's available.

3. Setting up reminders when I spontaneously think of something while out and about. It's much easier to just say "remind me to water the dog tonight at 7" than to type something up into an e-mail or reminder app.

Ultimately, it didn't get as much use as perhaps it should, for two reasons. One, it's inconvenient to use as a standalone app. You have to unlock the phone, find the app icon, run it, wait for it to get started, press the button to activate voice input, then say what you want. Having it built in to iOS5 on the 4S should eliminate that problem completely. It looks like it's just a single button to go straight to voice mode.

Two, being an app, it doesn't integrate well with the rest of the phone. You can't use it to call people or e-mail them or send them text messages or modify your calendar or.... This limits the functionality greatly. I sometimes find myself using Dragon Dictation to bang out a quick e-mail, but it too is fairly cumbersome. Again, the integration into the system should solve this.

From my previous use, the Siri app was great but ultimately not all that useful, but I think the integrated one could end up being great. Of course, we will have to see how it really works once it ships.

[nirvana]

Whenever the iPhone vs. android thing comes up, android proponents seem to always compare an actual iPhone against theoretical android phones? All of the features you're rebutting are in the actual iPhone, but you're comparing them to the entire android ecosystem.

On a point by point basis:

1. Android phones don't have co-processors for image stabilization and quality, for speech recognition, etc. They're using off the shelf parts and don't have the R&D budget to source and integrate the technology Apple has. Further, a couple of Apple's acquisitions were companies that give them an edge in power per watt.

2. Your claim about past iPhones is debatable, but it doesn't address the 4S.

3. I've --and I mean this literally-- heard people saying that competitors were replicating iTunes and it would no longer be a competitive advantage for Apple, since the very year the iTunes store was announced.

4. I think that talking to your phone like this might be a usability issue, we'll see. But nobody was used to touching their phones before Apple did it, and for a couple years after Apple announced the iPhone, people were always saying that phones with keyboards were better.

5. "Significance" is a subjective term, so you can't be wrong there- its significant to you, sure. Both products are quickly eating away at the installed base of feature phones... but it seems android makes sales to segments that just want a feature phone replacement, while the iPhone is making sales into segments where people want a smartphone. This results in iPhone users buying many more apps, using the phone to browse more, etc. Further, there is no successful android equivalent of the iPod touch or the iPad, and thus when looking at the whole market, android isn't doing as well.

6. All platforms have switching costs. Thus your claim here applies to android as well. However, since android users buy fewer apps, its easier for them to switch to the iPhone, than the reverse. The superlative app ecosystem on the iPhone works as a moat, but that effect doesn't help android as much.