I don't really understand the level of concern. I'm expecting a kick-ass slate based on a more open platform like Android or Ubuntu to come out in the next year.
I'm posting this a lot, but I'm not just trolling. I'm trying to get people to grasp the fact that UI is the reason for Apple's success.
Everyone else treats the UI as an afterthought or for whatever reason is incapable of designing a good one. The UI should be of primary concern.
This is particularly true of mobile apps. As your device and its screen gets smaller, UI design becomes exponentially more important. A bad UI can be tolerated on a 1920x1080 desktop, but not on a phone or a small pad.
I haven't used Android (or Chrome OS) yet, but Google seem to have a pretty good grip on UI too, so I'm hoping it's similarly good. If not, it's an open system, we can build a better one.
That's right. IMHO, Expose is worth $1000.
(Of course, now everyone has copied Expose... but you get the idea.)
Edit: also, seriously, i like to group workspaces by task. This is very anoying when I launch say, mvim, and it opens a window in some workspace already containing mvim. Same with terms and browser windows.
MS didn't think of expose because Windows' taskbar already let you select arbitrary windows.
To honest, I think the goodness of their UI is often overstated.
So, since Apple is still designing great UI but apparently is going insane, maybe it's time for a brand new Apple to be born. Younger, same UI greatness, not insane.