I do not think that people prefer the user experience of the iphone over similar phones, most people haven't tried multiple phones.
People tried multiple phones for *years* before the iPhone, then ran to it in droves when it came out.
I personally think that most people would like droid just as much as the iPhone, if not more so.
Huh? I might be getting one for development purposes, but it's simply not as smooth an experience as the iPhone. I'm talking specifically about touching and sliding stuff, moving between screens, etc. The basic UI stuff. The droid and other android devices I've tried are all slightly to very jerky and delayed in their response to touch. I was aggravated after about 10 seconds using one, and likely would have been even before the iPhone.
There were/are no light, small, big screened devices at bestbuy that allowed you to do email / web
There are now archos 5 tablets at bestbuys near my house, but last I looked, they weren't *on* and able to be played with or touched.
O/T rant: Not sure what Apple's doing, perhaps other than simple insistence, but Apple products displayed at bestbuys (do they do other retailers too?) always are displayed and positioned to be attractive and enticing. Products *on* and usable with real screens and apps, not stuck-on plastic scratchy pictures of what some artist wants you to think the phone/mp3 player *might* look like after you plunk down hundreds of dollars. And Apple laptops and desktops are just *running* - again, without lame "buy our geek squad support" wallpapers and 'click to see lame videos about which MS apps come bundled with generi-brand X desktop' apps running on 30 screens at the same time all lined up and down store aisles.
In general, I'm not sure why letting people *try out* the product in question before plopping down $500-$1000 is such a distasteful concept to retailers. It seems to work well for Apple.