Who are they competing against to go faster? In the desktop space, Microsoft's on (at least) a 2-year cadence, and that was in response to Apple speeding up th

Who are they competing against to go faster? In the desktop space, Microsoft's on (at least) a 2-year cadence, and that was in response to Apple speeding up their release cadence. Ubuntu's also on a two-year cadence (for LTS releases), but I'd be surprised if they're even on Apple's radar in any significant way. On mobile, Android's also slower than Apple. Android 4.x lasted three years before being replaced by Android 5 this fall; the releases in between were all primarily Snow Leopard-style performance and stability updates. If Apple's fast release cadence is having adverse consequences (which, FWIW, I'm not convinced that it is), there's no one to blame except Apple: they're the ones setting the expectation of rapid releases.