Over the last 30+ years, what has become apparent is that it’s all about the applications and not about the hardware.
In the 1980’s Apple pissed away it’s lead because it never knew how to court developers the way MSFT did.
And in the cell phone market, Apple has shown how to make a market for applications, and MSFT intends to demonstrate that they know how to make money for application developers and how to treat application developers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/reality-check-most-people-dont-care-about-how-apple-treats-developers-2009-7
The good news for Apple is that the reasons this backlash exists are completely meaningless to most normal people. That doesn’t make it right. But it should not affect peoples’ purchasing habits or their enjoyment of the iPhone’s standard features.
So it goes.
20 years ago the importance of applications was lost on Apple. More importantly the importance of a rich development community, and apparently 20 years later, the lesson is still lost.