How can one make a bold statement like "the apps for the iPhone are better" in relation to Android? Android applications are now outselling iOS applications, and the development industry have viewed Android as the future OS of choice for the
majority for some time now. In addition to this, the fact that Apple make it very very hard for developers to do what they want and to get their applications onto the iOS platform (case in point: Adobe Flash), means that developers are becoming less and less inclined to spend money developing for a non-dominant platform.
Personally I run Windows Mobile; applications on Windows Mobile are not your average 50,000 fart apps and the rest of the shite that is found on the "appstore", but instead they are, for the mostpart, aimed towards the corporate/enterprise sector, and are therefore very very in-depth - something the iOS apps will never be - they pretty much have to be since many of them carry pricetags of over $20.
With the advent of Windows Phone 7 and the crappy nature of Apples restrictiveness with regards iOS applications, it is little wonder that developers are now concentrating most of their efforts on Android.
As for iPod music Ste... well if you can sync iTunes with WebOS, the main direct niche competitor to iOS, despite Apples continued attempts to stop it, then I would not have many fears of you being able to do so with an open-source platform such as Android.
Im not all that experienced with Android as yet and don't particuarly like Google full stop, however I have for some months now, been looking into it (and Rhobuntu - Ubuntu Linux for my phone) as a potential upgrade once Windows Phone 7 is released because I am not interested in the Windows Phone platform, but from what I have seen of Android and when I have used it, it does appear to be one hell of an OS, bettered only by WebOS imho, which unfortunately, does not yet feature support for a couple of vital applications required for my business - simply due to a lack of marketshare leaving developers weary of investing in the platform.
iOS 4 is a nice step forward, not exactly "changing everything, again" and Apple and their legion of fanbois want to portray it (only a decade late with multi-tasking and unfortunatly nowhere near as good as WebOS, but then, nothing probably ever will be - cue the open-source Android community to make a hooky alternative), but iOS as a platform, needs to up its game and Apple need to get a grip of themselves before Android tears iOS, and every other mobile OS including Symbian and WinMo to pieces. WebOS and Maemo as good as they are, will probably never compete in the UK due to an already fairly saturated Smartphone market and as such are inevitably doomed to ending up as primarily tablet OS's, with limited mobile phone marketshare within the EU.
Androids are being "given away" due to the nature of the software licensing and because industry analysts view it as the future of the industry - it's the same reason HTC, once the biggest customer of Microsoft and probably the biggest supporter ever of the WinMo platform, are now dropping the aforementioned platform to concentrate on Android - the HD2 is seemingly the swansong for the WinMo platform. Microsoft did the same to Apple and everyone else, all them years ago, giving Windows away for essentially free and squashing all the competition, leading to one of the biggest and most notorious monopolies ever conceived - Google may be onto something here, and iOS may be living on borrowed time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/08/android_apps_-_a_new_goldrush.html