So I went and got a 6+. I have to say since it was my first iPhone I was blown away. I was in the camp of "Why do I need to spend $1000 to do what this $200 moto g can do?" I really can't see how android users feel that any android device is as polished as the iphone. I guess its subjective but honestly >90% of people I know in silicon valley have an iphone. If the most tech centered place in the world all use iphones, I think that says something. Its more than just its the trendy cool thing to do. Its honestly a better experience and the professionals can see that. If I, an engineer in silicon valley, can't get android to do what I want when I want it, how can I expect the average user to master it? Maybe its because I have a higher standard for software and user design since I am in the business but everyday I find some subtle way that the iphone manages to impress me, a feeling I never got on android.

I tried an iPhone 6, moving away from a Nexus 5 and then a Moto X. I enjoyed many parts of it--Touch ID is cool, Apple Pay is cool--but I took it back two days later because the operating system expects you to have a thumb the size of Montana to do something as simple as going back a screen in the mail app and I found dealing with applications and getting the phone the way I wanted it (and I'm no iOS newbie, I had an iPhone 4 and have multiple iPads) was at best interminable, at worst impossible. I bought a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact. It's the first cell phone I've loved since the iPhone 4--unsurprising, as it borrows a lot from its design while being pretty unique and pleasant on its own. (The waterproofing is great, hiding the connectors during regular use is nice, having a real focus-stop camera button is brilliant. Also, it's bright orange. My Nexus 5 was bright red. This is kind of my thing.)

As far as your argumentum ad turtleneckum, I wouldn't give ninety percent of the people I know in Silicon Valley the time of day. Their choice of phone doesn't reflect on me or the world at large.

Most of my iOS complaints were fixed in 8 and phone size was finally remedied.

Admittedly, if Google had released an update Nexus5+ for $350 I likely would have just stayed with Android for the cost alone.

There are lots of shovelware applications on Android (lots on iOS too, though), but I don't really live on my phone so I think it's just much less of a thing for me.

That wasn't the main reason I took it back, though if they had an iPhone 5-sized upgraded iPhone 6 I'd probably have kept it longer. (I probably wouldn't have kept it, there were enough other frustrations that not paying $900 for a phone and being able to get a better phone for my use case for $375 was appealing, but it might have lasted longer than a snowy weekend.)

It's a status signaller. It's like the Macbook Pro. From your reasoning, OSX must be the best OS out there given its popularity in SV, yet the grunt work for the vast majority of SV companies is done by linux - the stuff on the servers, making their money. Horses for courses, there is no One True OS.

It's also a massive overgeneralisation to say that the population of SV are essentially experts in phone design and UX. And if you think that the SV engineer is immune to fashion trends by dint of 'being professional', you'd be wrong. Witness the current fad of flat design, for example.

Then there's people like me, who see the 'better experience' as including things outside the phone. Supporting Apple supports their business model which suffocates open source and prevents tinkering. That's a worse experience for me.

Apple makes the only usable laptop OS these days (now that Windows 7 gave way to iOWondows)

Edit: I also disagree with the comment that OSX is the only usable laptop OS. Linux does require more maintenance overhead, but it's perfectly usable. At my last workplace there were plenty of people complaining about their OSX laptops, both in terms of various problems, and also that their older machines were slowing to the point of uselessness.

Like I said, horses for courses.

Also, Linus Torvalds uses OS X on his macbook air.

It's almost like OSX isn't the One True OS, and that different people have different preferences.

Could it not be that Apple's success has less to do with marketing and more to do with the lack of quality amongst it's competitors?

Even just among Android phones, their products are neither the most affordable, the most powerful, the most user-friendly, the best supported, or the best constructed but they have managed to become the go-to brand for people buying an Android handset.

Pretty much everyone I've met (yeah, anecdotes) with less of an unhealthy interest in consumer electronics than me defaults to "iPhone or Samsung" when looking at phones. Of the people I interact with most often, about 50% have Apple Phones, 45% have Samsungs, and the remaining 5% have Moto X's or Nexuses or other brands.

Marketing encourages people to take a look at their products. But if the products are terrible then nobody is going to buy them. Apple has had plenty of failures in the past despite good marketing e.g. Cube, many of the iMac variants.

The reason Apple does well is FOCUS. They keep their products lines simple which makes it easy for consumers to rationalise and easy for them to scale and improve.

I used to be impressed with how Apple products 'just work', but recently they have noticeably started slipping in this area.

I hope that happens to laptops too, because I'd love to have alternatives and some more competition.

if it breaks 12 months in, you put in $108 then $200 for the deductible. Those are conservative estimates because I can't find the pricing right now but I now it is more.

My iphone apple care was $100. If it breaks that is $79. I can break it 3 times over the course of 24 months and it is cheaper than breaking the galaxy once at 12 months. Applecare is a steal.

And in my daily life I do not see many ipads. Only amongst those so ignorant to think tablets = Apple in the same way they think computers = Windows. There are plenty of Android tablets out there in use, a lot of them are in businesses now due to the significantly lower cost to adopt $100 - $200 tablets over ipad minis, combined with developer fees and the hoops to jump through with xcode licenses and ios developer licenses and all that bullshit.

In my daily life I see quite a few iPads, but rarely a Nexus, and then only amongst those that have severe psychological issues. Nothing from Google interests me with their insistence on seeing me as a slave to their income generating advertisements./s