Very well-thought and detailed post, krisse. Given that you've also posted criticisms of Nokia you come across as very objective... that's helpful.

As an American working for a foreign (to us anyway) company and who occasionally travels abroad on business, I am embarrassed at how we are losing our technological edge. It's not just in phones, either, but in other areas. For a long time we took the approach of function over form, and let Europe come up with all the slick designs. Now we're slacking on function, too. Eventually China and India will shame us greatly. We have only ourselves to blame, too, with our fairly recent emphasis in education on testing over actual learning. I knew years ago that was going to bite us in the collective butt one day...

In this situation, Apple is a fluke, and I truly hope our industries realize sooner or later that it should not be.

/rant