Unfortunately, all of your pix appear as broken links, for me.
Look, I'm
not saying that Apple wasn't an important player in smartphones -- they were, and still are. What I AM saying is that the hoopla from the Apple fanbase over the iPhone5 was clearly not warranted.
Face it, the 4" screen on the iPhone5 is a less-than-stellar entry into a market that considers a 4.3" screen to be "small". And it's an odd sized screen, at that, which means that HD video has black lines on the sides of the picture. What were they thinking?
Worse, the feature set on the iPhone5 is unexciting. My gosh, you STILL can't send a Word document as an email attachment from an iPhone. Um, that's shameful. And customization? Fuhgetaboutit. It's Apple's way, or the highway.
Whose phone is it, anyway?
Further -- and pointedly -- given the same evidence, APPLE LOST THE SAME LAWSUIT in other countries. Sadly, here in the "Litigious States of America", winning a lawsuit is no longer meaningful in relation to the Truth. Just ask O.J.
And the appeals will keep the lawyers busy -- and wealthy -- for years.
Look, it's not that I don't want Apple to win this battle -- I do! We, in America, need to retain our technological preeminence, and Apple has been our leading warrior in this battle. Unfortunately, when Apple's latest-greatest smartphone is beaten handily by a Samsung phone that was introduced over six months ago, it's a time to mourn, not gloat.
In the end, watching millions of people standing in line for the iPhone was pathetic and more than just a little creepy. Blindly defending the product (despite its obvious deficiencies versus the competition) simply glosses over our disappointment and will not help Apple win the war. Just the opposite is true, in fact: Apple needs to hear, loud and clear, that we expected more from them.