a) In Canada, the choice for that seems to still be the Blackberry (edging out even the iPhone overall). b) …but requiring the purchase of a third-party utilit

a) In Canada, the choice for that seems to still be the Blackberry (edging out even the iPhone overall). b) …but requiring the purchase of a third-party utility to do so easily. (DoubleTwist, I've heard. I don't know as I don't have an Android phone.) c) Yes, Android is the platform that's decided to go the McDonald's Super Size Me route. This matters to some people, but I think there is a point of ridiculousness about this. d/e) I haven't seen any clamshell Android phones in any of the carrier stores, or on the carrier websites in Canada. I could just be missing them, but what's mostly sold for Android here are slabs and slider slabs (with the latter taking up a small number). f) I believe the network effect is much stronger with the iPhone. A colleague of my wife's asked his friends on Facebook what device he should get (asking between the Galaxy II and the Galaxy Nexus S, IIRC)—every single one of his friends said iPhone (I also said iPhone, but I was also able to speak to his use case). (Note as well that the network effect is stronger when you have fewer choices. You don't get choice burnout.) g) This is an American problem. Please remember that things are different in other countries. h) This also results in exhaustion and confusion. The aforementioned friend really didn't know the difference between the two Android devices. He'd settled on those two in all likelihood because they were (prior to the introduction of the Note) the most heavily promoted Android devices on the carriers in Canada. I would argue that there are only two possible advantages to Android tablets: a) Multiple form factors (size, convertability, etc.); b) Rate of change (this also has the downside mentioned above; no one will have a clue what to buy because there are too many variations and if they wait another week, someone else is going to release something Even Better Than The Last Android Tablet). OK. Strike that last. Real people will be confused by the various Android tablets and pick the iPad because it solves their perceived needs very quickly. Other tablet manufacturers need to figure out the single message that they're going to sell to customers—because what they're doing now isn't working and it won't work. If you sell a tablet on specs like you sold computers on specs, you've already lost the simplicity argument.