>Their near-monopoly is on good industrial and UI design.
I'm not convinced that this is an absolute bad thing, because this isn't a problem with Apple. It's a problem with their competitors. Like you mentioned earlier in the post, Apple is pretty much the only smartphone and tablet manufacturer that considers UI and UX as the absolute most important part of the device. For the most part, there isn't that much of a learning curve for using their devices. They just work.
Is this something that Google, MS, or any other competitor can do? Absolutely. MS made some pretty significant moves in that direction with Windows 7 Mobile. Google has added many features in Android that I would love to see in iOS.
Google seems focused more in innovative features, which means that Android will probably always stay ahead of iOS in terms of OS features. Unfortunately, Google's drive to get it out first may hurt them in terms of UX, because Apple will take the core concept, refine the hell out of it, and then add it to iOS only when it is as polished as the rest of their features.
I'm not convinced that this is an absolute bad thing, because this isn't a problem with Apple. It's a problem with their competitors. Like you mentioned earlier in the post, Apple is pretty much the only smartphone and tablet manufacturer that considers UI and UX as the absolute most important part of the device. For the most part, there isn't that much of a learning curve for using their devices. They just work.
Is this something that Google, MS, or any other competitor can do? Absolutely. MS made some pretty significant moves in that direction with Windows 7 Mobile. Google has added many features in Android that I would love to see in iOS.
Google seems focused more in innovative features, which means that Android will probably always stay ahead of iOS in terms of OS features. Unfortunately, Google's drive to get it out first may hurt them in terms of UX, because Apple will take the core concept, refine the hell out of it, and then add it to iOS only when it is as polished as the rest of their features.