Who benefits? I'm not sure its the user

I personally would've preferred to see Microsoft+Facebook square off opposite Apple+Google.

The way I see it, Google are engineers, Apple are artists. Yes Apple does good engineering work, and Google can produce nice UI, but I'm talking about when they're playing to their strengths.

Watching Google and Apple duke it out makes me sad that I can't have them both in one awesome product. Think about the integration and synching of the cloud with the simple elegance and usability of iPhoneOS.

If we need some industry bad-guy to spurr ingenuity and innovation, couldn't it have been Microsoft and/or Facebook?

I don't want to have to choose between Apple and Google. I want to see their products integrate smoothly.

In the end, I'll probably have to go the route of iPad + Android smartphone. But I'd rather have fully integrated google services on iPhone.

Maybe I should count my blessings that Microsoft wasn't invited to this party? Now how do we make Facebook irrelevant?

[I guess Twitter gets to be the kid who's always picked last.]