I bought my first iPhone almost a year ago. So far, I have no complaints?zero. That's very unusual for me, but it confirms that I made the right choice (which was based on Apple's reputation and the many sources of information that I consulted before buying my first smartphone).
I run Windows on the desktop, in part because it's part of my job, and in part for other reasons, such as the wealth of applications available, the relatively high degree of control it gives you over the system (without going off the deep end with something like Linux), and so on. The walled garden of Apple is not for me on the desktop. But when it comes to mobile devices, the walled garden is an advantage, not a disadvantage. I like to tweak desktop machines (or sometimes I have to), but I want a phone that just works when I turn it on. I want reliability, security, quality construction, and absolutely no hassles. And that's what iPhone has given me so far. I don't really care about new models and I dislike major changes, but when this phone wears out, if current trends continue, I'll replace it with an iPhone, and so on for the foreseeable future.
Android phones are for geeks, also known by the euphemism "power users." Geeks spend a great deal of time tweaking and tinkering their computers, but very little time using them for "production" applications. They can afford to spend three hours configuring wi-fi because they never do anything else with the phone, anyway. They therefore love phones that let them change things (and if they buy an iPhone, the first thing they want to do is jailbreak it). But the rest of the world just wants something that does the job, and that's where iPhone shines. The iPhone will not let me replace the kernel paging algorithm for virtual database pages with a module that I spent a year writing myself ? but I don't care, because I'm too busy using the phone to waste time changing it. It's not a religion, it's just a tool, but it sure is a nice tool.