i wouldn't say my arguement is flawed. you will find that the majority of WM5 apps wont work under WM6, and i'm pretty sure a large majority of WM6 apps wont work under WM7 (when it's released). all iPhone apps (except those foolishly programmed just for the 3gs) work on pretty much all iPod Touch/iPhone hardware. i dont expect to sit down and configure a phone to work how i want it to work - as it should work that way out of the box. the iPhone gives users just enough customisation to allow them to have a "personalised phone" without allowing them to change absolutely everything about the OS, but also without restricting them and preventing them from doing anything.
True, however the vast majority of apps out there are for WM6, and most will almost certainly work on WM7 when it comes out (just like programs designed for XP work with Vista and will work with 7). As you state there Apple have the same problem with a few of their apps (although I admit most are hardware based) but it could be the shape of things to come, they are starting to get a range of phones with different hardware, which is when things start to stuff up (god help them if they ever decide to change the resolution...).
You don't have to configure the phone to work the way you want to, just like a PC OS, it works out the box, however with WM you have the option if you so want to customise your phone to Antactica and back, making it perfectly suited for you (just look at a screenshots thread on XDA). Compare that to the iPhone, where there is very little you can change, and everyones iPhone software looks identical. I personally have left my HD almost as stock, I've changed the background and that's about it, works perfectly fine for me, and I can't see the point of going further at the moment.
however, comparing a phone OS to a desktop/notebook OS is not going to get us anywhere - as Windows 7 allows you to customise quite a lot while OSX allows you to customise very little. i cant get on with OSX purely because it's too restrictive, but i get frustrated with Windows 7 due to the amount of time it takes to configure it to work how you want.
I disagree, phone OS's and a PC OS's are increasingly conjoining, there is a reason the other name for WM phones is "Pocket PC". Just as on the Phone OS's, whos names are borrowed (and styled) from their PC equivilents the windows OS's are very customisable, whereas the Apple OS's are very much an "as is" system (not necessarily bad, but also a pain sometimes, hence me saying "customising themselves to the phone").
A question for you, Vista and W7 work out the box perfectly fine so if there was little customisation available (like OSX) would that be better? Instead of trying to customise windows for your own tastes would you instead just customise yourself to the style?
i still believe people spend way too much on PC hardware just because it's branded with an Apple logo - you're paying a premium for the name. however this is not the case with the iPhone/iPod Touch purely because it IS the best item on the market at the moment. that cannot be said of any of Apple's desktop/notebook products.
They do to an extent, however the same could be said for the iPhone (especially before the 3Gs), low spec hardware surrounded by a "slick" shell and an apple logo. Hardware wise it was a 2-3 year old phone when released, any other brand would have sold it for a couple of hundred at most, Apple on the other hand sold it for more than double... (And lets be honest, it wasn't a unique device, it was, and is, still just a PDA with an ariel, like dozens of phones before and since). "The best", well that's a very personal opinion, ipods have never been particularly good as actual mp3 players (poor sound quality compared to the real market pros, Sony, Cowan etc.) and although the iTouch is pretty good it has been superceded at the moment by both the Sony Wlakman X series and the Zune HD. "The best" is what I always buy, and ~6 years ago I was looking for an mp3 player, so I looked up "the best", and that was the Creative Muvu 2, I took it over the iPod 1g (bigger, uglier and poorer sound quality), then a year ago my Muvu broke and so I went looking again, this time I went again for "the best" on the market at the time, the Sony Walkman S-Series (although it was a close run thing, Cowan had a very good competitor and the new Nano was pretty good, shame about the SQ an iTunes however). If I were to go for "the best" touch screen media player tomorrow then It would be a toss up between the X series and the Zune, probably the X-Series however as it really is that good, unfortunately the iTouch is somewhere below them in "the best" stakes.
