As someone stated, this question is a little too early as none of us have actually used 8.1 yet. For now i find ios the most practical OS option available... i love live tiles in wp but i feel very limited in terms of other stuff. I recently gave wp a second chance only because most people were saying that apps were not at excuse anymore... big mistake. Third party apps are laggy or feel like an unfinished product... even official apps feel beta'ish.
I need to wait to test out 8.1 to say if its on par with anything, on paper things look much better but we just have to wait and see. Also, im sure aware that even if the UI is better than 8 i still have to wait for apps to be better user friendly.