Romanticizing smartphones and electronics

Galaxy Nexus by Google and Samsung

iPhone 4 by Apple

   Now here's some romanticism that I'm going to guess many of you might not realize goes on - the romanticizing of new smartphone technology.
   For simplicity's sake I'm just going to focus on the iPhone vs. Android phones. I'll go out on a limb and say everyone reading this blog post knows what an iPhone is, what it looks like, and how well it works. But do you know what components it uses on the inside? For most consumers, that doesn't matter; Apple technology "just works."
   For the same matter, what comes to mind when I tell you I use a Droid? Unless you're into tech, most likely "Oh he uses a Droid phone." My question to you is, which Droid phone? The original Droid? Droid Eris, Droid Incredible, Droid 2, Droid X, Droid X2, Droid 3, Droid Incredible 2, Droid Charge, Droid Bionic, Droid RAZR? An average consumer might recognize the Droid brand, but won't differentiate too much between the individual devices that fall under that brand.
   Then we get down to the question of the operating system on these phones. The iPhone runs iOS, but what version? Does your iPhone have iOS 5 on it yet? Did it get the upgrade to iOS 4? (Chances are yes it did, but chances also are you didn't notice much). If you own an Android phone, do you know what version of Android it uses? (If you're not using a phone that runs near-pure Android, that probably doesn't make too much of a difference to you though.)
   Those sorts of specifics don't matter to most consumers in the long run, and that's because of how the 'romantic' of these devices is set up. All Apple devices are designed and created to be very easy and intuitive to use - which can be said of most consumer electronics, the difference being that Apple essentially has made that their ideology.
   All of Apple's commercials (for the iPod, iPhone, iPad...) highlight how easy they are to use, and how fun and easy the features they have are. Apple's brand recognition is huge - it's one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and that goes back years - and they don't need to spend time telling consumers who they are: just what they're selling. And these consumers flock to stores to buy their products - you can see that in the fact that the company is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
   Apple has made much of the world fall in love with their products, and that's what Google is trying to do with the latest iteration of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich) and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Take a look at this interview with Matias Duarte, Android's head of user experience, where he talks about how he led the core redesign of the Android operating system with the goal of having a more friendly experience for users, letting them fall in love with their Android phones and devices just as they do with Apple devices. (I'm paraphrasing between that interview and other videos of Duarte, but the point is the same.)

  The key to Apple's overwhelming success in the electronics world is their ability to garner a deep attachment from their customers to the products they buy. Even with Steve Jobs' death (perhaps especially because of his passing), Apple will continue to have enormous success in the market thanks to its brand recognition and reputation for great products (expensive as they may be), thanks to the romanticizing nature around what they sell.