IMO Apple's biggest mistake (as far as stopping Android) was coming to Verizon one year too late.
The sad thing is this:
Apple had a HUGE tech advantage with their touch-screen iOS software. They were light-years ahead of the competition when the original iPhone debuted. They could've licensed the software with some decently strict quality controls (screens must be X size, processor must be X fast, etc.) and stomped the market while Android was still an idea in some moron's head at Google.
They could've been Microsoft for the new-era: iOS on every Phone, iOS on every tablet, etc.
And they made the same, stupid mistake as they did in the 80s: they picked device profitability over software profitability. They've locked themselves into a cycle where they need to constantly hit their hardware revisions out of the ballpark, both in specs and aesthetics, to keep pace.