Mobile hardware and software are separable, no matter what manufacturers tell you  

Vlad Savov at the Verge, with a good piece on the Android hardware market’s homogenization. I think this is absolutely true for phones running Android. The software was developed separately from the hardware and modded ROMs just make that all the more evident as they strip away the ‘customizations’ — read: crapware — so generously provided by the manufacturers in order to differentiate this quarter’s 1.2 model from last quarter’s 1.1 model.

I believe that it is, however, patently NOT true of Apple’s devices, like the iPhone, where the software is developed for, and explicitly intended for, a singular set of devices.

Much of the success of Apple is due to the seamless integration of its software and hardware, with all of the compatibility and upgrade path advantages that brings.

Apple’s software is not an interchangeable part, it’s a piece of the whole. That’s what it gets right and what Google is missing. You can harp on about patents all you want, but I believe that this is also why Google bought Motorola.

Apple has the control to ensure that the software delivers the best hardware experience possible, Google does not.