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You don't remember too well... They used your phone and iTunes use to target ads on their iAds platform. Yes, iAds is gone - but do you think they're also no longer using your data to target other services towards you?

• LG introduced the first touchscreen-only phone, beating the iPhone by a half year. But most people mistakenly believe Apple did it first.
• Gesture controls like pinch to zoom have been around since the 1980s. But most people mistakenly believe Apple invented them.
• Motorola had fingerprint unlock on one of its earlier phones, but it was dismissed. Until Apple copied it about 5 years later, and suddenly it was the best thing since sliced bread.
• The original iPad had 1024x768 resolution. When Android tablets came out with 1536x1024 and even 1920x1080 screens, they were dismissed because 1024x768 was "good enough." Until the Retina iPad was released, and suddenly having a high resolution screen became important.
• Google had a voice assistant on Android a year before Siri (they just didn't think of anthropomorphizing it with a spiffy name), but it was ignored. Until Siri came out and suddenly it was the best thing since sliced bread.
• Samsung has had OLED screens on its flagship phones since the original Galaxy S, but it's mostly become an afterthought with most people not even noticing the different display technology. How much you want to bet when the iPhone (finally) gets OLED screens it'll suddenly become the single greatest improvement in screen technology, making LCDs obsolete?
• Heck, the appearance of the front face of Samsung's tablets was based on their digital picture frame which they released two years before the iPad. Apple came up with pretty much the same thing, then turned around and claimed Samsung copied them. It doesn't matter that it obviously wasn't true and Apple eventually lost in court - legions of Apple faithful still believe Samsung copied Apple when if anything it was the other way around.

This seems unlikely, considering that the iPhone 7 only has a small 1960mAh battery. Apple don't have any magic super efficient radios or a way to drive headphones that uses less energy than everyone else. Their off-the-shelf flash memory and RAM isn't lower power than the competition.

In fact, we can make some educated guesses here. The last iPod Touch (6th gen) had a 1000mAh battery and Apple claimed up to 40 hours of playback. Let's take their word for it, they are saying 25mAh/h in the best case (screen off, everything in minimum power). So around 200mAh for an 8 hour work day, or 10% of the iPhone 7's battery. But of course the iPhone 7 has other stuff to keep alive, like the cellular/wifi radios (so it can accept incoming calls and notifications/messages), it has the Bluetooth radio to keep on for the headphones. Let's say the rest of the hardware comes out even (e.g. more RAM, but it's lower power), it's still impossible for it to play all work day on your claimed 10-12% battery.

Plus the earpods only get 5 hours battery life anyway so you need two pairs of them, or some other type which you must remember to charge up or keep plugged in.

So, you are calling Apple a liar?

Remember, the A11x SoC has FOUR cores (a first for Apple SoCs), and two of them are special "low power" cores. I would imagine that if you are simply listening to music, that is a prime example to something that can be handled entirely by the low-power cores.

Add to that that Apple is VERY good at power-management, and I would bet that listening to music on the iPhone 7 series is an EXTREMELY power-parsimonious activity.

Anecdotes are not data, of course; but with my iPhone 6 Plus (which does NOT have low-power cores), I can stream Apple Music over WiFi all during the work day, and only eat about 10% or so of my battery. According to Apple, the iPhone 6 Plus will achieve 50 hours of music playback (which I believe Apple defines as "wireless" (streamed) music), with its 2915 mAh battery. So, assuming an 8 hour workday, and extrapolating from a single workday of my experience, this comes out to 1.25% per hour (which seems about right), or, IOW, 66 hours.

Now of course, all things are not exactly equal, although Li-ion batteries have an extraordinarily flat discharge curve; but as you say, every time you wake up the display, etc. you screw with that discharge rate a bit, but considering the fact that the iPhone doesn't charge the battery to much more than 80%, nor allow it to discharge much below 10% of actual total capacity, and we have a good guesstimate that 50 hours is likely a "real" number.

And as I said, my phone doesn't have the advantage of the special low-power cores to help stuff alone a bit. So, I actually believe that 80 hours on an iPhone 7 Plus is a reasonably accurate number.

Remember, it's an embedded SYSTEM, and ALL the pieces-parts, both hardware AND software, can work together to give you an overall power consumption over time that simply looking at datasheets won't reveal.

I'm sorry that Qualcomm's SoC's are such power-hogs (the GN7 had a battery capacity nearly TWICE that of the iPhone 7 Plus, but actually achieved a slightly LESS run-time); but them's the facts.

I know right?! These fuckers are always copying Apple ! I can't find a way to run the latest Xcode on Snow Leopard. (Meanwhile everything runs on Win7). iOS constantly nags you (with no option to decline) to update. And updates slow down the device to the point where you are forced to throw it away. Like seriously Microsoft, stop fucking copying Apple !!!!

Actually, AC, I was fearful of upgrading my Ancient iPad 2 and my sort-of-ancient iPhone 4s to the last-possible OS (iOS 9.3.5), because I was convinced it would slow them down to the point of uselessness. But, since they were both pretty far behind, OS-wise (the iPad was on iOS 7.1.2, and the iPhone was on iOS 8.something), and iOS 10 was about to come out in a few days (and which was not compatible with either device), I figured I'd better just grit my teeth and do it while I still could.

However, not only are they NOT any slower, they might be just a touch snappier overall. Not a whole lot, and I did have ONE third-party App that got Orphaned (SampleTank, but that's on them); but it certainly wasn't ANYTHING like the horrorshow of "unusability" that many people (falsely?) reported. I continue to use the iPad 2 several hours each and every day. The iPhone 4s has been "in retirement" for quite some time.

As for running the latest XCode (XCode 8!!!) on SL (which came with XCode 3 or 4)? Seriously? And besides, there are PLENTY of Applications that won't run on a 32-bit version of Windows 7; so don't give me THAT crap!

If you want to run XCode 8, depending on your Mac, you could likely install El Capitan (or Yosemite) on an external Drive, and boot from it to do XCode 8 Development. Time DOES march on. SL came out in June, 2009. It really IS time to move on to a newer version of OS X/macOS. ESPECIALLY if you are doing DEVELOPMENT, FFS!!!

As for iOS "Constantly" Nagging you: Fortunately, there IS a way to stop it. And albeit a not-very-intuitive solution, but it is very simple. By the way, that took exactly 1 second to Google; so you MUST not have been TOO annoyed, eh?

A lot of companies still use XP when they need a rock solid dependable OS.

Apple uses it on their in-store displays:

http://www.iphonefaq.org/images/archives/windowsiphone.jpg

Nevermind. I found it. I don't know why I couldn't find it all those other times I looked.

"A phone can replace a camera," how cute.... Please take a photo with your camera that even approaches what you see on 500px.com

Dumbass. Every photo here is as good as anyone can expect to take in their lifetime, and orders of magntude better than your "work" I'm sure.

Next you will say something silly like "a phone can replace a video camera"....

Yeah, it's not like a film shot with a iPhone ever won an international film festival.

No apology necessary, as I don't have a high enough opinion of you to give a shit.

I can't think of a single BOGO sale for an iPhone. Ever. Not so for Android

This past December, Best Buy had a buy ZERO get one free sale on the iPhone 3GS, which I think beats a BOGO sale.

In the case of today, I would guess:

the competitor is Microsoft

and

the partners are Verizon (more) and TV networks (for content)

Just for your own information...

sync issues:

http://mashable.com/2009/11/09/iphone-windows-7-sync/
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330485-263.html
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/intel-responds-on-iphone-sync-issues/
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ipod-iphone-software-apps/139937-i-have-mind-boggling-iphone-3g-sync-problem.html
http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/97665

Random shutdowns/decreased battery life:

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2009/09/iphone-os-31-problems-random-shutdown-poor-battery-life-bricked-iphone-slow-performance.html
http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/09/16/iphone-31-bugs-random-freeze-shut/
http://iphone-chat.org/31-random-shutdown-and-battery-death-iphone-3g-65401/
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/iphone-therefore-iblog/2009/09/iphone-shutdown.html

As far as overheating/burning/asploading, it isn't a widespread problem...but...well...I'll just let the 103 million results speek for themselves:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS354US354&q=iphone+fire

"All smartphones have unlimited data (or "unlimited" as the case may be) anymore"

I assume you mean all smartphones have unlimited data NOW. How do you suppose that came about? It wasn't the case when the iPhone was released. So no, I'm not partially wrong. Here are some articles written around the time of the iPhone release. Unlimited data plans (particularly unlimited plans at reasonable prices) were not at all universal:

http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2007/11/o2s_iphone_unlimited_data_unlimited_woo.html

http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/9794

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/06/iphone_unlimited_data.html

When the iPhone was released it almost required (maybe it did require in the US?) subscription to an unlimited plan. Read the last link. Either Apple told AT&T it was no deal without reasonably priced unlimited data plans for the iPhone or AT&T decided on their own (it's hard to say which). But if they're going to offer unlimited data at a low price, AT&T has to put some restrictions on it -- no tethering. Yes, it was probably short sighted not to offer ANY tethering option. Yes, it took a long time to fix that.

It's quite reasonable that AT&T won't let you tether your $30 unlimited iPhone data plan. You say yourself that you have to pay almost twice as much for a tethering plan!