The load time of IE6 is irrelevant. It's a nearly 8-year old browser, service packs notwithstanding. Lynx starts up faster than just about anything, but you don't see people bringing it up, because it doesn't belong in this discussion.
Apart from the fact that Windows Mobile has had album art and gapless playback (then again, it only had the latter if the stack and hardware was set up correctly) even before the iPhone hype existed.
Of course, the rest of the Windows Mobile media player need a fair bit of work, but it was hardly a leading edge feature unless you came from an earlier generation iPod.
That more or less proves Apple's case, though. They got the fundamentals right first with the iPod, and added the fluff afterward. Interestingly, this is the complete opposite of what they're normally accused of doing.
With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once build a nuclear balm?
