re:
I have a foot on both ecosystems. Here are a few points about iOS:
1. Consistent and reliable update and upgrade track. IPhone 4S, a four year old device is still on the main update track. I bought a Windows Phone for 200 euros at start of the year and still don't know if it will get Windows 10. Furthermore if we take past experience, even if I had bought the Lumia 930, which I almost did, I wouldn't have a clue how well it would support. Maybe very well, maybe very badly. The second happened before.
2. Carrier independent...
I had to think long before deciding to reply but I am going to do it since this post shows how lack of knowledge of something leads to the wrong conclusions. I will use the same numbering to share my view on each point.
I will share in advance that I have a Lumia 930 as my day-to-day personal phone and an iPhone 4S provided by my company.
1. The is nothing consistent about an iPhone 4S with iOS 9... the only iOS 9 things that I got are a new Wallet icon, a new Siri view and the battery saver. I would rather have stayed with iOS 7 but since iOS 8 had already killed it I hope the latest and greatest from Apple would improve on its poor battery life a bit. And that is while only using it for email synchronization.
2. This is a thing only if you buy the phone from the carrier so I don't care. Anyway, I think it was mentioned that Microsoft will be moving to this model with W10M.
3. Never faced this issue on WP8.1 nor while using the W10M Insider Preview but perhaps is device specific.
4. Same on this one. I have W10 on 4 machines and never had an issue with missing notifications.
5. If you think apps don't crash is because you haven't used iOS 8 or 9 on an iPhone 4S. Also, if you have little memory left apps will crash. I have an iPad Air with 16GB and Mortal Kombat X crashes 30% of the times I try to resume it. I do agree though even Microsoft need to work on their apps to make them more reliable on Windows 10.
6. This is coming in W10M and I already had the opportunity to reply to an SMS from the notification. Do note that this feature needs to be included in the app to work even though the OS supports it.
7. Key point - f your provider supports it.
8. This is the same as it was with Skype in WP 7.5 and it will be coming back in W10M. The only difference is that this will work with any user who has Skype as opposed to iMessage which works only with iOS.
9. That sophisticated way is called Bluetooth. As for the features you mention.. I was able to reply to SMS using Nokia Suite even before the iPhone existed. Microsoft will be bringing the feature to Windows 10. Continuity already works across Office 2013 and 2016 with my recent files history synched and all files available s long as they are saved in OneDrive. And the feature is available to developers as an API.
10. I would rather have 3 gestures and long press than having to memorize the yellow pages of gestures that Apple has. And who uses 4 fingers to go back to the home screen when you just need to press the home button??? In W10 if you slide from the left you see all your open apps and now available in iOS 9 through hard press + slide from the left.
11. Have you heard of "Play to" in Windows 7? And if you think that DLNA has limited support then I think there is nothing to keep talking about. And I don't really see what's flexible about you need to buy Apple TV to do something that others do for free.
12. Actually to change the Store country you just need to go to the Settings, change the country and restart the phone. For example TripIt and TripAdvisor aps are not available in Bulgaria so I just change the country to UK, install them and then switch back.
13. Family sharing is a good thing and I do hope Microsoft get it as well. Although I use only free apps so see no need for it.
14. Same as 13 so not sure why you repeated it.
15. That's a nice to have and it depends on vendor support. WP8.1 has 3rd party apps for some devices although I don't have such so I can't really comment.
16. OK.
17. Haven't seen much difference so I guess it is personal experience.
And finally to make the point on the pricing... please let me know when you are able to get a 200 EUR iPhone that will be supported for 4 years. I would buy several! :smile: