Apple and all its brethren would do well to remember this simple fact. Even when we're wrong, customers are always right. If not, we'll take our trade somewhere else.

In this case, Apple itself has legitimized the competition -- Android (running on Samsung hardware in particular) -- by tacitly admitting that they would rather compete in the courts than in the marketplace. A lot of very frustrated Apple customers are seriously checking out our friends across the aisle and liking what we see. Even if we're not jumping ship this week, we're holding off on "upgrading" to iOS 6 and waiting to see how long it takes Apple to get it right. Combined with the iOS-ification of Mountain Lion and increasingly restrictive I/O options on their laptops, Apple is looking more and more like "the Man" and less and less like the scrappy little upstart that offered us freedom from tyranny.