Apple marketing is brain washing everyone. Good thing we have other smartphone manufacturers to awaken all of us.
Long time ago, Apple came along and said we can make phone better. And they did. Much easier to use for the masses. Familiar and intuitive user interfaces, less malware, convenient form factor (smaller and thinner) and no keyboard. iPhone wasn't the first but they improved everything and we loved it. And it continued to improve for a few years except for giving us glass and aluminum case.
Half a decade later, they continue to sell on UI (user interface) and the look. Every year Apple touts thinner, smaller and easy to use UI. And all Apple fans loved it and continue to love it. Smartphone has gotten better and people from other countries start using more smart features on smartphone and added more functions. Apple said those are not features but gimmicks. Apple has become VERY STAGNATE. They sell Samsung Galaxy S3 (2012 model) specification hardware on iPhone 6 with slightly better UI and charges same money as Samsung Galaxy S5. Apple market shrunk as a result except in North America and Europe. (You can't use 2014 Q3 & Q4 sales results alone to justify Apple market is growing, look at what is their market share in total global market size) Apple focus on thin metal case and legal lawsuits to change the market place. It didn't work except in US. Where Apple won on cosmetic and Samsung won on Apple stealing LTE technology, but Obama said it's OK and pardoned continue importation of iPhone 4 and 4S from China for US sales. Too bad America won't have moral justifications to fight against piracy overseas anymore.
Until last year, Apple said NFC is dead and iBeacon is the technology. And almost all US and many UK journalists went along with that. But this year iPhone has an ApplePay based on NFC (what did some journalists call NFC? Nobody F****** Cares? Haha!) But Apple had audacity to bring limited NFC capability to iPhone 6s so they can make more money, but not let us use all of NFC capabilities. BTW, NFC payment has been used quite well in many other countries for many years, and even in US for toll payment and such. Apple just used Apple fans as hostage to get their market placement. This is just one of the features that Apple said was a gimmick.
There are much more than this, we (most of in US and some in Europe) just are NOT scientifically logical any more. Don't even get me started on metal case. And replaceable battery, expandable memory, higher resolution, better displays, better cameras, nevermind...
I am from Silicon Valley, grew up here and worked at many SV companies... All my engineer friends uses Android phones, few years ago it was mostly Motorolas and before that Crackberries (sorry Blackberries) unless they work for Apple. Obviously we must be biased and don't know what we are talking about, just a bunch of geeks.
We sincerely hope Apple wake up and Apple fans see what Apple is becoming for what it is, so Apple can make something great and revolutionary again. Don't be obstructionist for corporate profit and user retention. iOS marketshare is important otherwise you become a dodo bird. Make something we can be proud of because others will just flock to it without justifying it by fanboys. Nobody had to tell anyone to go buy iPhone 3 or iPhone 4, people just did.
iPhone 6+ looks great, not enough to compete with the best of Androids or even Yotaphone 2. And Samsung probably won't sue Apple for copying their phablets, but they are learning how our system works. Some day soon Apple will have to admit metal case is a bad engineering. They try to do that with iPhone 5C but then who wants Galaxy S2 in Apple plastic? Again, iPhone 6 + is a definite step in right direction. May be there should be a 12 step process for Apple to admit something so they can get better. Hurry up, it isn't just Koreans and Japanese, Chinese are coming too.