Apple was very clear in the 80s that IBM was their main competitor, and was very clear in the 90s that Microsoft was their main competitor: in both cases the competition was not just argued against, but ridiculed with unflattering characterizations (IBM as Big Brother and their users as peons, Microsoft's users as not just awkward but physically unattractive businessmen). Steve Jobs himself took shots at Android, including my "favorite": """You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there."""... can you say more about how this is "uncharacteristic for Apple"? Is it just that the jabs are specifically at business models? If so I bet I can dig up some examples of that from the Mac vs. PC as series, if not from an earlier Steve Jobs iPhone keynote ;P.
I see your point, but Steve always seemed to think Android never stood a chance anyway. He didn't have to say WHY Apple was better than Android, he just pointed out some major (philosophical, not product) negatives, as you say the porn store, etc.
