Only reason I put up with Apple's restrictive OS and its various ridiculous lock-ins (not to mention the syncing with iTunes crap) was because the competition simply was not a satisfactory alternative up until maybe a year and a half ago, Apple were ahead enough in innovation to justify me sticking with it.
At this stage, I'm jaded enough with the entire Apple motif and OS to say that I won't even buy back into Apple if they do innovate, because the competition will knock it off in half a year's time, then I have the new tech AND an open OS / rom of my choice, which I discovered means a lot more to me. (Buying from the company that came up with it first doesn't mean anything to me, especially not if it means having to stick with iOS, an OS I've grown to seriously dislike over the better part of 2 years now). The Android-phone-maker's strategy of brute-forcing the smoothness experience with insane spec bumps may not be as elegant as Apple's, but it works just as well nowadays, something that couldn't be said even a year ago. (Of course, google have caught on too, project butter)
Seeing as I generally don't keep any piece of tech for longer than 8 months, there's also more to choose from among the competition because they release top-notch phones at a much faster pace. There will be more to decide among OS wise too, especially now that Ubuntu is kicking off, and even though it will need some time to ripe, it looks very promising already. (Curious about Firefox too, admittedly Tizen, BB OS and Windows phone 8 aren't doing anything for me at the moment)
Maybe part of why I turned my back on Apple is because I spent the better part of 5 years lapping up their rhetoric and fawning over their devices, I'm quite tired of them nowadays, and my enthusiasm to experiment and "see foreign shores" has simply overwhelmed me after half a decade of being in Apple's park. I'm increasingly discovering that these foreign shores are what I wanted all along, going back to Android was like a homecoming for me.
