What we have heard with every release of Android is that this one is more usable than it's own predecessor. Not iPhone or iOS. And that is factually true - 2.1 was way too laggy, 2.2 was better, 2.3 was even smoother and ICS now is, for the first time comparable / exceeding iOS in overall usability. That's what the Verge review claims and as far as I know, before ICS, they have always complained about Android from usability standpoint, preferring iOS as the gold standard.