Right, that's the state now. Back when blackberry and nokia were rocking things, it wasn't so grim.
>I'm pretty sure this is the case,
No, you're stock quotes prove that they are capturing the value of the user, it doesn't say how effective they are at capturing the value for the user. All they need to do is keep people interested in the phone to accomplish the former. That doesn't mean anything about actually providing the best for them.
It's gratifying to know I can convey significant meaning in the form of prose ;-).
> All they need to do is keep people interested in the phone to accomplish the former.
Excellent observation, IMHO.
> That doesn't mean anything about actually providing the best for them.
Unfortunately, this is generally not a concern for a 10-K[1].
Who knew that could happen here on HN?
An objective analysis of the two predominate smartphone OS's would suggest that we have never had control over the devices we wield.
> With so much information about each of us being siphoned off through the Internet, it's easy to wonder whose interest they serve.
See statement above.
> With all of the advances in computing power, you'd think we'd put a bit more imagination into capturing more value for each individual smart-phone user ...
I'm pretty sure this is the case, with Apple having a market cap of $735,165,038,300[1] and Google having one of $367,770,688,769[2].
1 - http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/aapl
2 - http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/goog