IOS is the only phone OS I'd trust to do my banking, and that's a major reason for buying a smartphone. For example, Google's business model (mining your data to monetize it) guarantees that Android will never be secure enough to use for checking my balance, let alone making payments of any kind.
Either you're using an SSL web page to access banking, or you're using an app which will also use encrypted data.
In neither case does Google have access to the data being exchanged.
You're right. There is nothing to argue: Google's business is about selling your information, and Apple's is about selling hardware and software.
Google doesn't sell anyone's info. They sell anonymous ad slots, just like Apple does with iAds.
Apple has even sold Google access to its customers since the first iPhone, by taking billions in the default search position fee, and in search ad kickbacks from Google. There's no difference between making money directly from ads, or making it indirectly.
Without Google's free-to-all Android software, and cloud-services, the competition would be lost, unable to compete. Google has made it possible for the competition to dedicate themselves to hardware, relying on Google to provide soft "intelligence".
As anyone who has ported an OS knows, you don't have to design the hardware yourself in order to come up with useful optimizations.
All the major Android makers keep R&D teams who customize and optimize Android for their specific hardware designs.
As for Apple, their internal secrecy has historically often kept its software and hardware teams from talking to each other. Or in the case of the first iPhone, from even seeing each other's work in progress. (I think they're getting better at this under Cook.)
Apple's products tend to be more expensive than the competition. By definition, they should be selling in way fewer quantities, and make up for it in the form of higher margins.
High priced phones DO sell in way fewer quantities than all others, unless the phone's total cost is hidden by subsidies or some other way is found to lower the upfront cost.
The overwhelming majority of iPhone buyers are not paying full price upfront. That's why everyone from kids to moms have one. As we know from historical analysis, in places without subsidies iPhone share barely breaks double digits. For example, iPhones didn't sell in Japan until they became "free" with a contract. Then they jumped in popularity. And Japan buyers are considered wealthy and technically astute.
Market share is important, but it is not the be all and end all of what makes a great product. 14% may not sound like a huge figure on paper, but it is still a very large number of iPhones sold in an absolute sense. More than enough to sustain its own thriving ecosystem.
Yes, that's true.
