iPhone Batteries are manufactured to a much higher quality than "replaceable batteries". They can also be replaced at any of the hundreds of Apple Store around the world for a small fee. Apple Stores recycle all e-waste returned to their stores.They can be replaced at any of the thousands of "Phone Repair" kiosks in Shopping Centres and Malls around the world for an even smaller fee, however they will probably throw the old battery in landfill.

Or you could just buy a device with sufficient storage in the first place and sell your old device on eBay.

Which only happens once-a-year-or-so. How often does a better Android Phone come out? Every 15 days?

Kindle Fire isn't Android.
It is cheap and nasty and has an OS forked from an earlier version of Android, but Amazon never paid for a single licence.

Many Consumers an ignorant Techies think the Fire runs Android, and for that reason, they will pay $200 for a Piece of Crap and not spend $600 for a real Android Tablet running ICS, which is *almost* comparable to an iPad (depending on your usage patterns).

These Consumers and ignorant Techies will be very disappointed with the Fire, when it is compared to an iPad and will get an iPad instead, writing off the $200 they wasted, and any Quality Android Tablet they may have thought about getting instead of the Fire.

The Kindle Fire will continue using Google as the search engine, so Google will be hesitant to take any dubious legal action against Amazon's legitimate use of their GPLed Code.

2012 will be the year that bootleg-Android Devices kill off real Android Devices.

Most People just want to access information NOW.
Even on a High-Performance gaming rig or Workstation, you have to wait for the device to start up, then start the Web Browser and so on

My father gets frustrated when he has to wait more than a few seconds for an SSD-based Mac Mini to start up. His old Windows XP Desktop Computer is sitting the shed gathering cobwebs. When I demo'd a Touchpad for him, he liked it but found it too slow. Whenever I'm around he grabs my 1st Gen iPad and uses it instead. He's getting an iPad 2 for Christmas and I don't think the Mini will ever be booted again.

But you won't be able to take advantage of the new features in your App.
The dominance of Windows XP in Businesses is meaning that Developers can't create Apps that take advantage of Windows 6.0-based OS's (like Vista, 7 or 8) because they need to maintain backward compatibility with XP.

This is more dominant in Mobile OS's due to limited Hardware.
Apple are combatting this issue by encouraging users to have up-to-date software. With the exception of some 3G's and 8GB 3rd Generation iPod Touch's, every iOS device sold in the last 2 years can run iOS 5. App developers can write Apps which take advantage of iOS 5 without worrying about alienating too much of their user base.
Windows Phone 7 manufacturers are contractually obliged to push out updates regularly. All WP7 phones will be running 7.5 within months of it's launch. Developers can safely write code specific for 7.5 without much risk of alienating anyone.

Android is like the Wild West. There isn't any incentive to progress society, only expand. Your Android 1.0 App may run on every version of Android ever, so why bother writing an Android 1.2 App? Why bother writing an ICS App when only a minuscule percentage of your user base will even know that ICS even exists, let alone will ever be able to run it.

This won't reflect in Tablet Sales.
While the number 2 selling tablet of 2012 will have a Linux Kernal and Dalvik-based App Engine, and be able to run (some) Android Apps, it won't be an Android Tablet, it'll be the Kindle Fire.

What effect the Fire will have on Legitimate Android Tablets is yet to be seen, but it will probably cheapen the brand, without actually using the brand. In the same way that substandard $500 tablets are cheapening the iPad brand.

Crappy Android Handsets have been manufactured for 2 years now in huge quantities and the market is flooded with them. Carriers have incentive to push them out in vast quantities, and there will be very little incentive for consumers to get a Quality ICS-compatible Android Handset rather than a cheap $2-shop special.

Android is about to have the boom before the bust. All the value of the Android Brand is about to be spent in one go.

Sounds like something is wrong with your iPad.
I'd take it to an Apple Store and see if they can replicate the issue. There should be an Apple Store near you.

Actually, Apple retain most the profits because they provide an entire package. When you pay your $1000 (less subsidies) for a smartphone, some goes to hardware, some goes to distribution, some goes to marketing, some goes to R&D. Apple get's all of that.
With Android, Hardware profits go the manufacturer. Software R&D profits go to the Google, Distribution profits go to the Reseller (Carrier). They all pay for marketing.

The Phone market is well and truly established and iPhones sales are still growing in the phone market. The smartphone market is only expanding at the expense of the Legacy Phone market so Android isn't taking any Phone Market Share away from iOS. Android isn't winning against iOS, it is winning against Samsung, Motorola and other legacy phone manufacturers.

Tablets are an emerging market. Excluding the glorified PC Tablets of the late 90's, the iPad Market is the tablet market. Consumers don't want Tablets, they want iPads.
Apple has substantial quantities of R&D tied up in their Tablet market, as well as consumer mindshare. While other manufacturers were reacting to the iPad as a joke, Apple quickly decimated the NetBook market and put a significant dent in the Laptop an Desktop Market.

When a Cheaply manufactured, overpriced Tablet with copy-cat OS comes out, is an indirect threat to the iPad Market. It may take away a few sales of iPads to start with, but nothing significant. When Manufacturers start practicing predatory sales tactics like copy-cat packaging and pixel-perfect software cloning to unload inferior product to consumers, that can really damage Apple's mindshare. If one idiot consumer thinks they bought an iPad because the sales drone says "it's the same as an iPad" and has a terrible experience, that doesn't just reflect poorly on the idiot customer, sales drone or even the manufacturer pushing crappy product, it ends up damaging Apple's image too.

I hope your comment was sarcastic, but will assume it wasn't.

Lots of PC Manufacturers rely on conformity to keep prices low. Windows is designed to be the same on all hardware. Hardware driver abstraction means that most software runs within the same environment. Throughout the 1990's all Windows Computer hardware was 1024x768, with a 101-key keyboard and 2-button mouse. They all had floppy drives, ran on x86 compatible chips (with or without MMX) and used a Frame-buffer-based GPU to display graphics.

Not much has changed since then; the exemptions are Bleeding-edge Games which rely on specific GPU hardware.

Also, PC's are overpowered for what they are used for. Developers are able to bloat their software to take into consideration any compatibility issues, without having to worry about Hardware or OS constraints.

Tablets are much more lean on resources. Software has to be much more optimised for specific devices. That is why there are so many different manufacturers Android Stores and why Apple have Universal Binaries for iPhone and iPad Apps. The irony is that Java's write-once-run-anywhere methodology is what is causing these issues in Android.

Siri is still Beta. Unlike Google, Apple restricts access to Beta software. They may open Siri up to earlier devices like the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 once it is out of beta, if the experience is acceptable.

The quality of the Apps in the iOS App Store is much higher than in Android. I wouldn't call $1000 for a Mac Mini and $100 for a Developer Account to be particularly high fees.

Free Apps in the Android Store are supported by advertising. I think paying $0.99 to not be bombarded with Ads or have your usage data sold to the Highest bidder *and* the lowest bidder (and everyone in-between) is a fair price.

The dock connector was a great replacement for FireWire of the earlier iPods. FireWire could only carry Data and 12V Power. The Dock Connector could also carry 5V Power and analog audio. It was upgraded to also carry analog video. It was upgraded to also carry Digital Audio, then Digital Video, but they had to strip out 12V power. I don't think we'll see Thunderbolt iPads soon.

Yeah, iTunes for Windows is pretty crappy, even though it still the most popular music playing Program on any platform. It's quite embarrassing. The only thing more embarrassing would be Zune, HTC Sync or to not have any Syncing Software at all. Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac is not too bad though...

I've also had more luck buying Dock-connector USB cables than micro-USB cables anyway. I needed one for my AppleTV the other day and tried three different electronic shops before I found one. I should have just bought one of those $40 Android Phones instead, thrown it away and kept the cable.

Unfortunately for Android, those comparably priced devices are few and far between. Most Android devices on the market are cheap, nasty devices being sold at inflated prices. Same reason why Windows has such a bad reputation.

Apple have a repair policy for the battery. You will still be able to get a replacement battery for an iPhone in two years time when the battery finally does degrade to the point of being unusable from any of the Hundreds of Apple Stores around the world, or from any of the Millions of iPhone repair booths dotted throughout Shopping Centres and Malls around the world. If you need to power up on the go, Morphie Juicepacks and cheaper knock-off Dock-connector battery packs are sold at most Corner Shops.

You may have some difficulty finding the exact battery for a 2-year-old Obscure Android Phone.

Are you able to put Apps or other Protected content on SD Card in Android yet, or are you still restricted to Internal Memory? Legitimate Question.

iPad Camera Connection Kit allows you to connect Keyboards and USB Sticks with DCIM data. Why are you connecting a Gamepad to a Touch-Screen Device? Legitimate Question. I've never tried it with an iPad because I've never felt the need.

Which version of iOS are you using? User-side Multitasking has been available since iOS 4. Legitimate Background Apps are forced to behave nicely. There is a plethora of Background GPS Loggers in the App Store, all with the disclaimer "Continued use of GPS running the the background can dramatically decrease battery life". No wonder you need to replace the battery on your Android Phone if you are using it as a GPS Logger.

I prefer browsing in 768x1024 on my iPad. I can instantly zoom in on most websites. The handful of sites that are crippled on iPad generally aren't worth visiting anyway.

Yeah, I agree that Dock-compatible devices are more expensive than their generic counterparts, but most high-end product is more expensive than generic counterparts. The iPhone's and iPad do work with most USB-host music players I've experienced, even the cheap, nasty ones. I haven't seen a car stereo with a USB Socket that doesn't integrate flawlessly with the iPhone or iPad, or any iPod since the FireWire-only 2nd Generation iPod.

See #9 above. Maybe your holding it wrong

I can wait for the iPad 3. My trusty 1st Gen iPad is still performing admirably.

It still competes directly with Android devices.
While real Android Devices are of much better quality than the Kindle Fire, and have higher levels of software support and better quality hardware, they are still tarnished by the Kindle Fires existence.

Consumers look at an Android Tablet at $500 and think "It can run Angry Birds, eMail, Facebook, play movies and display eBooks". They look at a Kindle Fire at $200 and think "It can run Angry Birds, eMail, Facebook, play movies and display eBooks". Many consumers will grab the Kindle Fire without a further thought and have their opinion on the usefulness of Android Tablets forever tarnished by the lacklustre experience.

While iPhones are of much better quality than Android Phones, and have higher levels of software support and better quality hardware, they are still tarnished by the Android existence.

Consumers look at an iPhone at $200 on a contract and think "It can run Angry Birds, eMail, Facebook, play movies and display eBooks". They look at an Android Phone at $40 and think "It can run Angry Birds, eMail, Facebook, play movies and display eBooks". Many consumers will grab the Android Phone without a further thought and have their opinion on the usefulness of Smartphones tarnished by the lacklustre experience, until they see someone using an iPhone and think "I should have gotten one of those instead"

Meanwhile in business world, Amazon will continue making money hand-over-fist buy selling stuff, Apple will continue making money hand-over-fist buy selling stuff and Google and Facebook will still be making hand-over-fist by selling your data.

Microsoft have an obligation to supply updates.
Windows XP got a bad reputation because Windows 98 was insecure. Even Vista and 7 have the stigma of insecurity from the days of XP and DOS-based Windows.
Microsoft is actively encouraging users to keep their software up-to-date. XP should have been EOL years ago, but Microsoft is still pushing out updates to keep users secure.

Google don't feel obliged to supply updates. They provide the source code to OEMs.
OEM's don't feel obliged to supply updates. They provide hardware to Resellers (Carriers) which happens to have a copy of Android on it.
Resellers aren't inclined to supply updates. Consumers have contracted to pay them money regardless of whether their device still works or not. If a software version interferes with their network, they may push out an update, but only enough of an update to mitigate the effects on the network.
Consumers with Android Hardware are not able to perform updates. While Cyanogen-mod may empower some technology-geeks to update their software, they also run the risk of bricking, rendering their devices even more useless than before the update.

Apple fought obscure accounting laws in the US for the ability to provide updates to their customers for the life of the device. They may have dropped the ball once or twice, (iPhone 3G, 8GB iPod Touch 3rd Generation), but still strive to provide as many new features to as many devices as they can.

The Transformers cost as much as a cheap Windows Laptop and are still only as useful as any other Android Tablet.

If you just want a Tablet, not buy an iPad for the same price?
If you want an Laptop, why not buy a cheap 15" i7 based laptop that can run Windows, Linux or whatever you fancy for the same price?

Why spend $700 when you could buy a Windows7 NetBook and a Kindle Fire for less?

The $0 phones are 3GS's which take a conventional SIM.

Internationally, 3GS's retail for about $400-$500 unlocked. Because GSM is ubiquitous in the rest of the civilised world, you can use any carriers SIM in it without restriction.
The $40-$100 contract-free Android phones are still locked to a carrier so are useless unless you purchase that carriers service. The Carrier still subsidises the device in order to lock-in your custom. They also get the added benefit of pushing obsolete surplus inventory.

Consumers get almost as little choice when using an Android Tablet. Hardware manufacturers still lock down devices to only use one store and side loading isn't a user friendly process for the average consumer.

While Cyanogen.mod is a great project which gets around most of the limitations of a commercially produced Android device. It is once again difficult to install.

The only Android Tablet that is really going to sell in any quantities is going to be the Kindle Fire, and it will set consumers expectations of what an Android Tablet is; cheaply produced crap designed to be given away as a throw-away vending machine. Kindle Fire will kill consumer interest in Android Tablets.

Software Patents are broken, but can we really trust the opinion of someone who has a vested interest in Liberating Patents owned by their competitors.

I'm sure if we asked to liberate patents based on Google's IP, it would be a whole other ball game. The source code for Android 3.x still isn't freely available and the Source Code to Google's data mining algorithms aren't likely to be made open source any time soon.