Working in the Telecom industry, and having used all three major OS.  I actually prefer windows.  It combines the best of both worlds with more aesthetically pleasing UI.  

(I'm using a Nokia Lumia that is why you have been quoted).

Just adding my two cents: Apple was exclusive to us nerds but it went mainstream just like Nirvana, 50 cent, section. When you go mainstream you lose your fire and look to hold on to what got you there instead of being hungry to get better. It's kind of like when something is used to hunting that it get so out of place when it's being hunted...

What I'm trying to say is Apple no longer has that independent "it" factor anymore, but the guys who adopted apple later on doesn't know that so they think it's the best it's ever going to get. After awhile it gets old arguing about flash or what programs you can run on it or even paying for ringtones of the song that you own...it becomes a status symbols and familiarity instead of substance.

Why do you love Apple? You love it because it was your first experience in the smartphone realm (or the best until you brought an iPhone) and you don't mind it's limitations if you stick your fingers in your ears and go lalala until you cannot hear what's better out there. As silly as it may sound, I'm going to another closed source, simply because not many people are smugly touting it. Hello wp8, I'm sure after awhile your fanboys will turn me away too.

The short answer: A laser focus on user experience.

Long answer: Broadly speaking there are two paths to profit.

One is to add value by taking a number of components and combining them into a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. If you can put together a more coherent whole more efficiently than your customers or competitors could on their own, you add value and can claim a profit as your reward.

The other is to seize market control, and there are quite a few ways of doing that. You can stimulate demand with advertising, you can lock in customers by subsidizing entry costs and collect rent on a subscription thereafter, or you can make deals with distributors so your product has exclusive availability, or you can merge or acquire the competition to claim a larger slice of the pie, or you can just make what the other guy makes with some cut corners so you can squeeze him out on price.

I happen to believe that a product which earns it's profit by offering superior value is better than a product designed to leverage market control. For decades now, businesses have focused on seizing market control as the path to profit. Fashion companies use marketing to build their brand, printers sell below cost to secure a de facto supply contract, cola companies secure exclusive distribution deals with restaurants and schools, and media companies borg everything from web pages to record labels into content empires.

Along comes Apple, dedicated to making complicated technology as painless as it reasonably can and maximizing the user experience, and becomes the most profitable company in the world by doing so. Sure, they need marketing, distribution and cost control just like any other company, but they refuse to make it their basis of competition (people who say otherwise are deluded).

The competition has noticed. Already we can see a renewed focus on design and user experience. No way would the Microsoft of ten years ago ever contemplate releasing something like Windows 8. In other sectors, businesses will focus less on mega-mergers and distribution deals, and more on creating a compelling customer experience that rivals find hard to replicate.

A lot of people still seem to think Apple is some kind of fluke, but many others have already clued in that Steve Jobs was the Henry Ford of the 21st century.

Apple, they really like upgrading their products even with only like 2 or 3 minor changes. For some reason, people go crazy over it too. I'm an Apple fan, but I just don't understand those peoples' mentality when it comes to having the absolute latest. Personally, I really like the physical design of their products and they work fine. I use the iPhone 4 and before buying my MacBook, I used to buy HP laptops (have 2 of them stuffed away). It was bothersome to use the Windows OS because of how it could easily catch viruses and what-not. I know it's possible for Apple computers to catch one too, but I guess my laziness of having to keep up with anti-virus software got me annoyed.