I'm over on WPCentral and a Windows Phone fan, but to be honest, if Apple hadn't released the iPhone 2G, I doubt very much that there would be much progress towards touchscreen phones now or perhaps a couple of years ago... Apple did really push the mobile phone market forward. I do believe though that even with the release of iOS 7, Apple is well on its way to become the next Blackberry... The operating system was incredible back in 2007/08, heck, even 2009/10.
But what's next? From Apple I'd like to see something new before considering purchasing a new iDevice. A new, built from the ground up iOS (without the pages full of app icons) and a refreshing design for the hardware. I like the look of the 5C, but would feel cheated if I bought that since it uses the same internals as the 5. Even then, the design is very much like the 2 and 3....
If Apple didn't exist, I'd probably still have my Sony Ericsson music mobile phone, or something similar...