Here's the thing, it's Apple. I find overall I'm happy with their products. Do they do everything I want? No, for one I'd love to have the option for a 13" MBP that has a dedicated graphics card or even a faster processor (Just cause I want a small size doesn't mean I want a low powered laptop, I have a monitor for when I have space and want a large screen).
But, in the end, their products that I've bought are what makes me happiest so I do compromise. But, it's Apple, they aren't going to do what the users say they want. They are controlling and do what they feel makes a good device, not what popular demand says, and if you can't accept that, you'll be happier with another device (no one is forcing you to buy them, in the end you gotta figure out if what they offer is what you want to pay for). They are going to do what they feel the users really want/need. I find that overall they are pretty good at figuring out what is actually important in usability in a product (not always but I have rarely been unhappy with the usefulness of their product.... quality on the other hand? I think Apple has gone downhill
). For example before I had an iphone I had an ipaq (Dedicated PDA). I groused about the idea of a phone/PDA combo, I thought they should be seperate. I didn't want a huge screen for a phone to put to my head but I didn't want a small screen for my PDA (which was a big reason I was against the idea of a combo, it made the screen smaller but you still had this brick to hold to your ear). I made fun of iphone's small screen compared to my ipaq. I made fun of the lack of a SD card slot (or any sort of removable storage). I made fun of the non removable battery. I made fun of the touchscreen keyboard. I made fun of the fact that you couldn't install any new programs (this was the first iphone).
After getting the phone the smaller screen was unnoticeable in using it as a PDA but the small size made it fine for a phone, not unwieldy like I'd imagine holding a PDA to your ear might feel. I now prefer having more storage in the device and not having to switch around SD cards, it's nice everything fits in one place. The battery? Well I guess it does make the device more durable to not have it removable (that's the one thing that went flakey on my PDA, the battery door stopped latching so well) but still be nice to have the option. But you still can buy external batteries that will power the iphone. So a little clunkier answer than having a removable battery that you can replace, but you aren't just limited to that battery. When I went to look at different smartphones, at first only considering ones with keyboards, I discovered the physical keyboards were designed like crap. Tiny *recessed* keys that even my small hands (I'm a 5'1" female and my hands are proportinately sized to that, so small) had a hard time typing them without looking to pinpoint with the tip of the nail. It was easier to use the iphone's touch keyboard that had a well designed interface.
As for the apps, Apple changed that by the time I got an iphone and got well supported for it. As I said, that's one of the things that would make me change my mind, if they lost a lot of developer's support and the apps went elsewhere. Of the things I made fun of the iphone for, in hindsight, Apple's (at the time) unwillingness to let you install 3rd party apps was the only thing I think I was right on (but I will say that was a huge negative and it would make it not worthwhile to me and would really kill the usefulness of the iphone to me cause what I like most about it is that it is versatile and I can keep adding functionality to it through apps. I'm still not sure how Apple managed to sell the first iphone like that, that alone would have turned me off from considering it.
