100% agree with this.
100% disagree with this.
I had the original iPhone years and years ago. It was a very good phone for its time. I had the original, the 3G, the 3GS and the 4. But after the 4, the tech in iPhones started lagging. I switched to a Galaxy Note 2 a couple years ago and I've loved it. The screen is large (which, by the way, the iPhone now imitates), I used the stylus quite a bit in the first few months (it was useful in something I was doing, but haven't used it much since) and, most importantly, I'm not forever stuck with the phone being the way Samsung sold it to me. I've been running CyanogenMod for roughly a year now and I still love.
I'll probably get a new phone soon, because this one has developed problems from usage, but the point I'm making is that, just like in any other area of tech, success is imitated, not a product.
Just like other smart phone makers followed the lead of the iPhone, the iPhone is now following the lead of Android phone makers. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a thing. And there's nothing wrong with iPhones, I have no problem with them. They just don't do it for me anymore.