You touched on this in your last paragraph, but I think it still deserves saying: Apple wields a lot of the power it wrenched away from carriers to the benefit

You touched on this in your last paragraph, but I think it still deserves saying: Apple wields a lot of the power it wrenched away from carriers to the benefit of it's consumers. I'm stoked that my iPhone doesn't com preloaded with crap ware and that my girlfriend's 3 year old device receives OS updates immediately once they are released to the public.