As others have stated, why do you feel that only Apple should have to do this? An OS taking up space on a device is not any different than any other device with storage space.
And as others have also pointed out, iOS takes up a smaller percentage of the available space than most other manufacturers phones - shouldnt they be the first target? Didnt reviewers immediately report that the Microsoft Surface 8GB was useless purchase because it ends up with like 2gb of available space?
Actually an OS taking space on a device prior to apple used to have its own ROM.. separate to the storage space.
its APPLE that begun the move to a single storage pool and the classification of the device as a computer (something i stated originally that you cut from your quote).
Computers grew and the storage space you got you expected to have to fill a portion of it with an OS to make it usable.
Phones however didnt have this, phones were usable as phones without the need to add storage, sure, camera phones came that you could add a card to so you could easily transfer photos from the phone to a computer, and later smart phones arrived that you could store apps and MP3s as well as those photos, but in all that time, the storage was seperate to the OS.
Then the iPhone came along, and the OS went from having its own ROM to sharing the pool of memory the user uses..
Prior to the iPhone if a phone had 8GB of space (or 4Mb or whatever) that space was space you, the consumer, could use (formatting size may be slightly smaller) but the phone would work without that. because the OS was on a separate chip.
Microsoft, samsung and others have all followed apples path for their phones and tablets because, hey, not having to put in a flash chip for the OS and stiffing the consumer on space = easy $$$ (im NOT counting the Surface tablets that run full WINDOWS, they are computers and i would expect them to be treated as such , but android and RT tablets could easily have a separate OS rom like the phones)
