I agree somewhat but I think it's more than that. Apple made a specific choice to concentrate first and foremost on experience. On the PC we sacrifice speed and fluidity for running numerous applications at once unless you're running a high end machine.

All of us have experienced how much you want to tear your hair out over lag (especially in iTunes). I think iOS eases that experience because there only is so much you can do at once and you always feel like you're in control in an environment that Apple actually controls.

I wish they'd go further, though: how much battery life could Apple get out of an iPhone if they kept their great minimization and efficiency-maximization of the electronics going, but pulled back from the thinner-and-lighter-every-time mantra and devoted all the saved space to a bigger battery?

An iPhone that's smaller than my still-pocketable non-Apple phone isn't that appealing to me (yay for having above-average-sized hands!). An iPhone that could go a week easily on a single charge would make me sit up and take notice, though.

If you care more about battery life, why not just add something like http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=112&c... ?

The iPhone's battery takes up a gargantuan amount of its internal space already. Multiplying the battery size by 7 would end up doubling or tripling the device size easily. See the iFixit teardown of the 4: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4-Teardown/3130/1

It's truly just an incredibly hard problem to solve.