Why does it boggle the mind? Most of the Android revenue is licensing. Google doesn't have a lot of cost when it comes to licensing.

Again, why? Sure Goggle has done some evil things but you're saying making money is inherently evil. How do you think Goggle can afford to be not evil as a company. Some money has to come in from somewhere.

Clearly you've not taken geography or civics or history. The US border with Mexico is 3,201 kilometers (1,989 mi) long with much of it over rugged terrain. The Canada US border is 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi) long. The Atlantic coast is 2069 miles. The Gulf Coast is 1631 miles. The Pacific Coast is 7,623 miles. The Arctic coast is 12,383 miles. So how do you propose to "close" the border? My rough estimation is almost 30,000 miles of border to close. That's just geography.

So which countries maintain a closed border? Only the totalitarian ones like North Korea, East Germany, etc. The vast majority of countries have open borders because the logistics of closed borders is too much to handle. That's history and civics.

Are you suggesting that a phone has DNA?

First of all I NEVER said any of that. Second, a phone is not a biological entity. It can't get a disease. It suffers from a defect.

Seriously why call it a disease? That implies that an iPhone could get it from another iPhone, you not washing your hands, etc.

Why are you afraid that Apple fans will do to you what you did to them? From what I can tell this appears to be a manufacturing problem rather than a design fault in their batteries which Samsung probably doesn't make anyways.

Apple has their reasons and you may disagree with those reasons but they have them.

While I agree that generally wireless headphones are sometimes troublesome to set up, it only Apple worked on a set of wireless headphones where they optimized the setup. If only they developed a whole new chip just for this application. . .

I don't know about "high quality" when it comes to a standard headphone audio jack. Now for the MacBook Pro as well as some other laptops, the headphone jack is also a digital audio out port as well. So ditching that would affect those customers like DJs and sound professionals that use that port as a digital signal.

[Citation Needed] And when has Apple done that?

iOS 10 Compatibility List
The oldest iPhone: iPhone 5 (September 21, 2012)
The oldest iPad: iPad 4th gen (November 2, 2012)
The only thing you could say is the iPod Touch has to be new.

If anything newer versions of iOS work well with older iOS devices. You can't say that about Android devices.

Which is more a function of GPU and not the CPU. Apple uses PowerVR for their GPU and Samsung used a Mali (ARM) or Adreno depending on where it is sold. Reports are Samsung devices with Mali are sluggish compared to Adreno variants.

Um no. Since Apple has an architectural license they don't have to use ARM's core. They can make their own and call it what they want. The newest generation of ARM cores for smartphones is Cortex A72 or Cortex A73. Both are using the ARMv8-A instruction set.

The OP said: "It isn't technology-related, since both Sony and Samsung fit far more features into less space - again, without sacking the headphone jack." Specifically he disavowed that it had to do with technology so your post is sorta irrelevant. As far as the Gionee Elife S5.1 is concerned it isn't ip68 so, again, irrelevant.

Also Apple controls the hardware and software. With Android you get many players and sometimes the optimization of the device is lacking.

Apple has an architectural license so yes they could. They chose not to do so.

I don't see any benefit. x86 is far less energy efficient so that's why Apple does not use them in mobile devices. As for x86 they work with Intel on power and space efficiency. The only benefit is software porting as a transition; however, since they control OS X, they could move the whole thing to ARM like they when moved to x86 instead of PowerPC and not blink.

That isn't factually true: Samsung S7 (142.4 x 69.6 x 7.9 mm) and your S7 Edge (149 x 72 x 7.62 mm) vs iPhone 7 (138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1mm) and iPhone 7 Plus (158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm). Your phone is shorter and thinner than the iPhone 7 Plus but not the iPhone 7. Both iPhones are thinner than either S7 and the iPhone 7 is the definitely smallest of the group. It's not factually true that Samsung fit more into less space in your specific example.