Daring Fireball: It’s All Software
I’m biased, insofar as I consider Apple’s strategy more appealing than Google’s. But that’s because my interest lies in having the best possible user experience — the best-looking UIs, the lowest-latency responses, the smoothest animation, the most elegant designs. I share that interest with Apple. Google’s interest is in reaching the largest possible audience. That’s why I chose, at the outset of this paragraph, to say that I find Apple’s strategy “more appealing than”, rather than, say, “superior to”, Google’s. Apple’s strategy is correct for optimizing the quality of the user experience. Google’s strategy is correct for maximizing the number of users for its apps.
This is a good piece on the differences between Google’s and Apple’s strategies for delivering a cloud computing service to their customers. I think the paragraph quoted above is absolutely correct. The whole piece is worth reading.