I agree that public tends to follow trends and if the who's who of the world is using apple products we'll use apple products, if they're with Samsung then so are we, and it goes on. Why it's easy for Apple to always be in the US public's eye is because their products simply works. It's hard for MS to catch up knowing that the features they're now putting in WP8.1->WP xxxx are those that were around in Apple and Samsung for a while now. What MS needs to do is to show that homegrown is the best way to go just like the US has adopted APPLE as their own no matter what Samsung drops, then MS needs to show how on PAR WP is with APPLE. What the public sees is that the IPHONE is 1 singular product being made better and better each time and not different variations of the OS on different devices. MS should look to make the WP OS on par with IOS, forget ANDROID as if IOS no matter how many ways they present the same phone year after year it just SELLS!!! So MS needs to hurry up and finish those GDR updates, release them, finish CORTANA unleash her, then look to see what can be done to make the OS, POP!! Makes 0 sense for us the consumers to actually talk about app and os parity knowing full well that WP 8-> is still under construction. Why do you think that people will always buy IOS?? the OS simply works and all APPLE does is improve what's already accepted. How many people truly complains about their IOS experience and still lines up for hrs to buy the next iteration of their IOS smartphone.
Let's talk again when MS says to the world this is us WP9/THRESHOLD!! and with it comes all that any smartphone user would want and when the DEVS actually see an OS from MS that actually is a thing to behold and actually WANT to develop apps to add to the store then we can actually have a sit down/stand up/knock down/drag out argument about which OS is truly the one of CHOICE!!!