One of the big wins with android, is that you can choose from literally 100s of phones. From loads of different manufacturers. You can get a basic pink square phone, or a massive phone with HD display.

That's never going to happen at Apple. The iPhone fills a certain need, but it's only 1 phone.

Why is that a win? I just don't see it. It sounds great for geeks like us, but this is the same fragmentation we find in the PC market, where brand x thing doesn't work with brand y thing. I bought a Samsung phone last year, and 4 months later they decided I'd get no more firmware. My friends can all run Google Music on their phones. I have to wait because I chose "the wrong phone."

Apple's one device works well for non techies... in fact out of the non-geeks I know, it's about split between Android and iOS devices - the folks with iOS say they have an iPhone. The others say they have a Samsung or an EVO.

I think the "one device" works pretty well.

Almost as though history is repeating itself verbatim.

I'm not trying to debate the relative merits of the iPhone and Android, which is silly anyway. I'm just saying that I think Apple believes in their products and is not engaged in a cynical ploy to bring down their competitors via litigation.

Apple has filed suits, but I think they did that because they genuinely feel that they have been wronged. Steve Jobs seems quite indignant about the way Samsung's products rip off Apple's so shamelessly.

Also, as you point out, Android products can be made by many different manufacturers. So even if Apple sued HTC, Samsung, and Moto out of business overnight, other mfgs would take their place and make Android devices. So, this doesn't really make sense as a ploy to litigate Android out of existence.

By the way, I'm only trying to suss out why Apple is doing what they're doing. I don't agree with the content of their suits, and furthermore I think Apple's products are strong enough to compete on merits, so the suits seem pointless.

One last thing that's been bothering me: Can we, collectively, decide on what the situation between iOS and Android is please? One month Apple is doomed and Android is marketshare king, the next month Apple are big bad monopolists dead set on snuffing out the little guy.

Have you missed all the patent infringement suits that Apple is bearing down on major Android handset makers like HTC, Samsung and Motorola?

If you had a patent that you felt others were infringing, would you just sit back and do nothing?

In addition, those handset makers (as well as the countless patent trolls) are busy filing their own infringement suits against Apple (and others...) As much as it sucks for innovation, this seems to be the norm rather than the exception these days...

"If you had a patent that you felt others were infringing, would you just sit back and do nothing?"

Actually, much of the industry does just that, or used to. A good example is Cisco, who only uses its patent portfolio for defensive purposes.