A calculated decision to "stay on iOS" or "switch to android" is about the 6219th most important thing in most people's lives.
In any case, I didn't say that 5 million devices wasn't impressive. It is. But it isn't necessarily evidence that the iPhone 5 is earth-shatteringly great, it's just good enough for people to upgrade.
[1] http://articles.cnn.com/2012-09-19/tech/tech_mobile_iphone-5...
So true. I'm a tech person, and even I get overwhelmed. I look to see what the "correct" new Android phone to get is, start looking at my daily-use apps to see if they're there and usually give up after a couple of hours of research. I'm sure one of these times it'll be there, but frankly it's easier just to support the retirement plans of all my friends and former coworkers now at Apple (so far as I can tell, none of my friends or former coworkers at Google directly make money if I buy an Android phone).
However, you're right that, e.g., in Switzerland, people don't tend to buy phones with contracts.
Compared to the feature churn over in the Android space, I'm not sure the iPhone has ever done any one thing that's particularly interesting. Never done a 3D screen, years behind the rest of the world to get 4G, hasn't done that stylus thing, behind the game on voice recognition, etc. Compared to Android, it would be fair to say that, considered all by themselves, iPhones are downright boring.
And I think that's maybe a big part of their success. (disclaimer: wild speculation ahead) For most people, the consumer electronics space is this big confusing morass of acronyms that nobody understands and subtle distinctions of feature set and whiz-bang gimmickery and just general confusion. It's a horrorshow combination of making people feel confused and inferior ('cuz they don't really understand all those acronyms) and the paradox of choice. And then someone in a blue shirt (polo, not tee) walks up, and it manages to go downhill from there.
Compared to that, Apple's a relief. You want a phone? OK. The new one, last year's model, or maybe the one from two years ago? Now you want a computer? OK. Laptop or desktop, and big or small? After that it's just a couple minor customization options, and you're done with choices. The whole experience is downright pedestiran - the products are pedestrian, the store is pedestrian. And that's perfect, because y'know what? For most people, a phone doesn't need to be interesting. It's an appliance. People may want their appliances to be pretty, but they also want them to be boring.
Other people's mileage varies of course. Just wanted to remind you that app ecosystem is maybe more important than camera, wireless charging or bigger screen (or even Android "intents").
The iPhone 5 was good enough that people didn't want to switch to Android, but that isn't the strongest compliment out there. IMO, Apple is simply benefitting from no-one else doing anything very interesting. I'd like to think that the Windows Phone devices from Nokia and HTC will change that, but at this point it may be too late.