Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

Wow thanks for that cool analysis. It's not like their feuds with Verizon and Wallet are well known and documented. Surely you're baseless accusations of... what exactly... are right on.

A lot of these things you're saying have to do with just being aligned with the Apple universe.

> I can pick up one device where I left off on another one.

I would argue that seamlessness across devices has historically almost always been stronger on Android than iOS (although they're pretty similar right now that iCloud is fairly caught up with Google's cloud offerings). It's changing OS that's a hassle.

> The select/copy/paste is just bizarre

Really? I found this quite intuitive and feature complete; I don't really know what it's like on iOS, are you sure you're not just used to a different way of doing things?

I didn't have your laginess issues with the N7 but I'm sure your complaints are legit. Nevertheless I think they will vary from device to device; it's not clear that Apple could build a $200 tablet with those specs that didn't ever lag. Knowing Apple, if they couldn't they just wouldn't.

On paper the N10 looks considerably better to me than the iPad (lighter, has better screen resolution, etc.). That's BMW vs. Mercedes not Toyota vs. Mercedes. We'll see if it lives up to its specs but if it does I don't think there's much left to the argument that Apple products are on the whole better rather than different.

"I also don't think the kind of people that buy Android devices are the same people that buy iOS devices."

Really ? I used to own an iPad 2 and an iPhone 3g. Because they were much, much better than the competition at the time. I sold my iPad 2, got a nexus 7. I'm going to buy a Nexus 4 as soon as it's released. I don't understand your point about laggy typing with the Nexus 7. Did you hit the bug on the 16gb that starts when you have your internal storage filled ? (yeah, I agree that this kind of bug shouldn't even exist, but if you've filled your N7's ssd and ignored this bug you don't really know how smooth the device can be) I've always been good at typing, I get a very high word-per-minute on a real keyboard and a satisfying wpm on touch keyboards with good prediction, I admit I use swiftkey rather than the built-in android keyboard but I haven't noticed a lag so far. The experience has been stellar for me, everything runs as smooth as my iPad 2 but I now get the functionality I have always desired, such as a real filesystem access, the ability to disable built in apps and use a third party app as the default (Android Intents) and so on.

I admit that android is lacking in tablet apps, but that's almost certainly going to be solved with the release of the Nexus 7 and now the Nexus 10, because past android tablets really sucked and you couldn't count on them to get OS upgrades. With the Nexus 7 and 10, developers will have a good reason to come to the platform. The Nexus 7 is already outselling all the other android tablets combined I think. JellyBean and ICS fixed a lot of what was wrong with the UI and smoothness. When it comes to the core OS itself, I now consider Android on par with iOS, which wasn't the case for me during the days of 2.x and honeycomb for tablets. Why do I like android better than iOS now that they're on par (IMHO) ? the ability to customize the OS, even without having to root the device. I didn't root my N7 nor did I install a custom rom. But I'm using a third party launcher, keyboard and lots of app that CAN'T exist under the iOS ecosystem. I've always wanted to use Android, but bought iOS devices in the past because they were objectively better and too good compared to the subpar android releases, my desire for a more free (as in freedom) ecosystem didn't outweigh the cons of early android. But in 2012, with Nexus devices ? iOS is dead to me.

I'm not saying iOS sucks. I still like it a lot, and think that Apple truly changed the market and I doubt the competition would've become as good if Apple didn't release those devices. But I absolutely can't stand the walled garden and only submitted to it because of the lack of real competition, until now. If Apple gave us the kind of freedom with expect on a computer, be it an OS X laptop or Windows 8 laptop, I would have no qualms in coming back to iOS, and buy the next iPhone or iPad. But with android getting much better than it used to be, and iOS being still as constraining as it was in the past, hell no! Waiting for the jailbreak when new devices are released, and waiting before installing os updates because they break the jailbreak is not for me. Android allows me to do things you'd need a jailbreak on iOS, but not something like rooting or unlocking the bootloader on Android. Btw I'm not a software pirate, I buy the apps that catch my interest, I don't need "full freedom" but android gives out far more freedom out of the box than iOS and some of those freedoms are truly useful. Swiftkey is the best virtual keyboard I've ever used, your mileage may vary. You can't replace the keyboard on iOS without jailbreaking. You can't have a keyboard with symbols for programming without jailbreaking. Why ? Why should we let ourselves be shackled by Apple so much ? Windows 8 (RT and Phone) is going the wrong direction too. Sideloading shouldn't even be a word. Installing apps outside of an app store shouldn't be considered a specific, niche use case.

I'm in the same boat. I don't consume media on my phone, like, ever though, except Subsonic and even then I relisten to my favorite music of the month enough that it gets cached quickly.

I remember how ridiculous Apple's RAM prices used to be and you're right about their pricing strategy on iPhone storage representing a large markup. As I said, Apple's margins are high for a consumer electronics company, partly because they're able to employ those pricing tiers.

The point of my post wasn't to defend Apple, it was to show that comparing the selling price and bill of materials figures to highlight profit is simplistic and wrong. What actually matters is gross margin and operating margin, both of which are made public so there's no need to refer to the estimated BoM as the OP did. This applies to all companies, the all-too-common misunderstanding of BoM figures is a pet hate of mine.