Typical iPhone Hater:

So, basically your question is "Should I buy a device that uses the same technology as every other smart phone but costs substantially more, has few useful software features, hundreds of apps that all do the same thing, and will be considered gauche in a year?"

Yes. Because:

• Apple's ecosystem is more tightly integrated with its own devices/software/services as well as major partner companies. Look at how many credit card companies and banks support Apple Pay.
• iOS is more secure and reliable than Android. (See "Stagefright" exploit and "Google won’t fix security bug in nearly a billion Android phones")
• iOS developers are quicker to adopt the latest APIs/features because iOS users update their OS far faster than Android. (iOS 9 adoption is at 50% in less than a week. Android Lollipop took 5 months to reach 12%.)
• when iOS devices break, there is free face-to-face customer support at Apple Stores. And often times, they'll replace broken devices with brand new ones, for no extra charge. (Where do Android users take their phones when they break?)

All of those points have value that some consumers find worthy of paying a premium for. None of these points are ever highlighted in spec sheets, but they are real things that convert first-time Apple customers into happy, loyal ones.

Everyone wants to maximize their bang for their buck. But there are two kinds of people:

1. those who focus on minimizing the cost
2. those who focus on maximizing the value

Loyal Apple customers are the latter.

Neil Cybart:

The iPhone, iPad, and Mac are converging into one central "brain" while new platforms will be formed focused on key aspects of our lives including transportation, home, and body (wearables). In this new era, the iPhone is positioned as the center point of our digital lives with iCloud and Apple services representing the glue connecting everything together. […]

Neil believes, as do I, the iPhone will eventually fade away and the Apple Watch will become the real personal computer.

In the future, the iPhone may melt away, and a range of devices will be able to provide an unimaginable level of personal technology. Apple Watch will likely be able to stand on its own in due time. As the definition of work changes, more and more will be designated for the wrist, further strengthening the appeal of wearables. Transportation and the connected home will be looked at as providing the same kind of personal experience.

Joshua Topolsky:

And that’s part of the reason why Apple’s “me too”s end up feeling like “me-first”s. In the age of digital, execution is staggeringly important, and there isn’t a single company in existence that can pull off polish and simplicity like Apple. While other companies struggle just to get all of their devices and services talking to one another, Tim Cook and friends are worrying over the details that actually make consumers pay attention. The products don’t just work the way they should; they feel the way they should. Reducing friction, even a single click, can change the way a user perceives an entire product. […] [Emphasis mine]

That’s partly Apple’s magic show: being able to blend the familiar, the known, and the obvious with something (even a little bit) totally new. The company’s senior vice-president of marketing, Phil Schiller, told Businessweek “You can’t just say, ‘Here it is. It does the same thing 5 percent better than last year.’ Nobody cares.” But that five per cent is often the difference between making something that people talk about, and making something they forget. That five per cent is where Apple lives.

Jan Dawson:

So why is this a big deal? Well, the reasons are fairly simple: it allows Apple to take over the primary relationship with the customer, relegating the carrier to a secondary role in relation to their device purchase. Yes, you’ll absolutely still have a direct relationship with the carrier, but it will now be exclusively around the service plan and you’ll no longer be dependent on the carrier for upgrading your device. You’ll now be able to put your carrier on autopilot while you have a much more active relationship with Apple, upgrading annually on a set schedule.

My favorite part about this is how it forces the carriers to compete. Looking forward to better reliability, customer service, and more competitively-priced service plans as the carriers bend over backwards to retain customers.

Viranch Damani:

One possible solution is for Apple to sell refurbished devices in countries like India. In the US, the shift to leasing plans such as T-Mobile’s Jump on Demand and iPhone Forever program will make people return their iPhones every time they upgrade.

If these returned iPhones are refurbished, packed and sold again by Apple in emerging countries such as India at reduced rates they would sell very well. This will have two possible solutions:

1. Apple would not have to develop a low-cost iPhone for emerging markets and risk possible cannibalization of the high-end.

2. These refurbished iPhones, sold at reduced rates, will not only help Apple boost sales significantly but will help them maintain a good experience for the end users which is very important for Apple’s business model.

While all of the carriers are moving away from subsidizing to on-demand upgrading, all of these returned iPhones at the end of each lease will have to end up somewhere.

This is something that Android or Windows will never be able to do, simply because they don't have Apple's brand strength or smartphones that maintain a high enough resale value.

For Apple, U.S. carriers, iPhone users in the U.S, and potential iPhone customers in emerging markets, this is simply a win-win-win-win.

Joe Casabona, a self-proclaimed iPhone-hater, concludes his two-week review of an iPhone 6:

I didn’t hate my time with the iPhone, but I definitely wasn’t convinced to convert. There are things I’m just used to on Android and prefer. I know it seems close point for point, but the things I didn’t like are weighted much more than the things I liked.

I still plan on using the device for testing, and will likely use it on trips or longer days when I need the battery and want to take nice photos. It will likely be my primary device in Disney World, and when I do some more traveling this summer.

Six weeks later, Joe humbly admits his two-week review wasn't fair:

There were 2 factors in my first trial with the iPhone that stacked the odds against me ever liking the device. I wasn’t using it as my only full time device, and I didn’t use all the features.

The first factor made my user experience with the iPhone more like this: “Ugh. I don’t like this; I’m just going to do it on my Android phone.” That means I never used the iPhone enough to not have a frustrating (read: different from Android) experience. The second factor was the real kicker. I was excluding the features that make using iOS great. I didn’t turn on iMessage. I wasn’t using Passbook or Apple Pay. Handoff was something that was hands-off for me (pun totally intended).

He concludes:

This has been a strange experience for me. I’ve been such an outspoken proponent of Android. It was more like anti-iPhone. That means making the switch has been one of begrudging acceptance. At first, I didn’t like that I liked it.

But as I use the iPhone more and see how well it actually works, it’s clear that Android is great for some things. But needs to mature in other aspects. And I think Google knows that too. The change in treatment of Android over the last few years has been noticeable. It’s like Google said, “GUYS. We need to fix this mess.”

But still. As I write this post using iA Writer on my iPad, I know I will be able to proof it on my iPhone while I wait at Baggage Claim. Then I will hit publish from my Mac, all without having to push a sync or refresh button. And that’s some powerful stuff.

After fully embracing the iPhone, Joe is able to realize the powerful benefits of the Apple ecosystem, the seamless integrations, and how it simply feels with real first-hand experience.

Because at the end of the day, real people don't care about how impressive the tech specs or feature lists look on paper; people care about how well technology feels when it's integrated into their lives.

Mark Gurman:

New to the Force Touch experience, a user can look up a point of interest in the Maps application, and then Force Touch on the destination to immediately begin turn-by-turn directions. Currently, if a user wants to start navigating to a destination, she must search for the point of interest, click the navigation logo on the map view, then click another button to actually start navigating. In this case, the Force Touch gesture will skip two steps.

In the Music application, a user can Force Touch on a listed track to be presented with some of the most commonly-used actions. For instance, if a user deep presses on the listing for a song, a menu will appear to quickly add the song to a playlist or save it for offline listening. This Force Touch gesture would act as a substitute for clicking the actions button on the right side of each track listing in the Music app.

Another feature in testing, according to one source, are shortcuts that appear after Force Touching an app icon on the Home screen. For example, if a user deep presses on the Phone app icon, he could choose to shortcut directly to the Voicemail tab. This could also apply to deep pressing the News app icon and being taken directly to either the Favorites or For You tabs.

Some of the Force Touch gestures will come from Apple’s latest MacBooks. For instance, a user can Force Touch a link in Safari to see a preview of that webpage. The gesture also works for deep pressing on an address or contact name to see a preview of a map view or contact card, respectively. Similarly, a user can Force Touch a word to look up its definition.

A very welcomed feature for iPhone to make it easier for small hands to navigate large touchscreens.

Mark D. Mill:

First, transit. Getting transit directions in China was far more important for Apple than getting US transit directions. Consider just a few numbers:

• The US has ten cities with a population over 1 million. China has 171.
• The US has 34 cities with a population over 500,000. China has 450.
• In 2014, China had 62M vehicles of all kinds registered, in a country of 1.3 billion. This is expected to reach 200M by 2020.

Most people in China get transportation by public transit. Having a mapping service in China without transit directions would be like having one in the US without driving directions. Apple hit this hard:

• Apple developed transit directions for just 10 cities in the non-China world, but over 300 cities in China.
• The non-China cities for which Apple has transit directions have a combined population of about 38M. Just the 9 listed cities in China have a combined population of over 130M.

Second, improved battery life & reduced OS upgrade size. These upgrades do not exclusively benefit China, but they were important upgrades in China. In the last years, as I’ve talked with non-Apple users in China, the number one reason they bought another brand was because of screen size, which Apple solved with iPhone 6/6+. The number two reason was poor battery life. Apple getting an extra hour of battery life was important; getting 3 more hours in battery savings mode is huge for the hundreds of millions of people who commute on public transportation without a power source.

Reducing the size of the OS upgrade, likewise, is important for China and the developing world, where the phone is often the only computer. When I didn’t have enough free space to upgrade, I could just upgrade via iTunes on my Mac. For many iPhone users in China for whom iPhone is their only computer, that was never an option. There are a lot of people still on iOS 7 in China as a result

Every once in a while, Apple puts out "Snow Leopard" type releases that are primarily filled with "boring" refinements. On the surface, people can look at that as a sign that Apple no longer innovates. But really, Apple uses these "boring" OS releases to add important updates that are actually huge to other specific markets.

In the past, Apple focused on features targeted at the enterprise market.

This time, with iOS 9, Apple is going all in on China.

9to5mac:

In order to avoid the sluggishness and bugginess that was most notably seen in iOS 7 for the iPhone 4, Apple has restructured its software engineering process to better support older hardware.

Instead of developing a feature-complete version of iOS 9 for older hardware and then removing a handful of features that do not perform well during testing, Apple is now building a core version of iOS 9 that runs efficiently on older A5 devices, then enabling each properly performing feature one-by-one. Thanks to this new approach, an entire generation (or two) of iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches will be iOS 9-compatible rather than reaching the end of the iOS line.

Great news. In addition to better performance on older devices:

• slow iPhone/iPad upgraders will be able to run the latest versions of third-party apps
• older iPhone/iPad users will get the latest security updates
• app developers can spend less time/resources on supporting older iOS versions
• third-party apps will progress faster

In anticipation of the first-gen Apple Watch being released later this month, here are some comments on the original iPhone back in 2007:

the iphone is announced to appear in 2007 , the n95 from nokia which is a 2006 model cand kick iphone's arse very easily, the iphone is just some sort of eye candy, i have a 6680 and i would'n trade it for iphone:)
try comparing the iphone with the n95 on gsm arena, you will be surprised.

Apparently none of you guys realize how bad of an idea a touch-screen is on a phone. I foresee some pretty obvious and pretty major problems here.
I'll be keeping my Samsung A707, thanks. It's smaller, it's got a protected screen, and it's got proper buttons. And it's got all the same features otherwise. (Oh, but it doesn't run a bloatware OS that was never designed for a phone.)
Color me massively disappointed.

Im not impressed with the iPhone. As a PDA user and a Windows Mobile user, this thing has nothing on my phone. It sure is good at what it was designed for, a phone that entertains and talks... other than that, i dont see much potential. How the hell am I suppose to put appointments on the phone with no stylus or keyboard?! I can sync it with my computer, but when Im on the go, I cant do either!
No thanks Apple. Make a real PDA please....

lol last i checked many companies tried the tap to type and tap to dial ... IT DOESNT WORK STEVIE, people dont like non-tactile typing, its a simple fact, this isnt a phone its a mac pda wow yippie....
I mean it looks pretty but its not something i forsee being the next ipod for the phone industry...
and its funny how people are "orgasming" when you havent even seen it being used or a real presentation of it just a mockup graphic on the screen, yes its thinner than the q and the samsung, guess what those were 2006 phones, this is a 2007 apple phone, what did samsung and motorola stop developing last month or something?
It took apple how long to develop this ONE PHONE, samsung and motorola release new phones every few months lol, and constantly innovates and gets better, im sorry but if im sending text messages i'd rather have my thumb keyboard than some weird finger tapping on a screen crap.

Typical short-sighted reactions by consumers who are driven by tech specs, feature lists, "but other companies did it first," and think design is about "how it looks."