"Apple and HTC both had much larger numbers of users who who said they will remain loyal to touchscreen technology, Canalys noted, though we wonder whether that's more to do with brand preference than favouring touchscreens, especially in Apple's case."

Really? Do you really wonder whether that's down to brand preference, or do you not suppose it might just be because Apple's touchscreen experience is generally better than the competition's?

I've worked my way through five touchscreen phones since my first in 2002, I still obsessively play around with all the new demo phones in shops now, and I've never come across a touchscreen phone or UI that's as consistently fast, intuitive, and responsive as the iPhone. It's head and shoulders above the nearest competition even now, as far as I can see, and we're now two years on from its introduction.

I played around on a Palm Pre the other day - three of them in fact, just to make sure I hadn't just happened across a "bad" one - and as nice as everything looked on screen, the whole thing became a janky, jerky, unintuitive mess as soon as you actually tried to touch anything or perform any function. As hard as they've tried to ape the iPhone, they've simply created the polar opposite, in all the worst ways possible. I'm not pleased about that at all, Apple need some decent competiton, but it's not come about yet - and if that means they get to benefit from their user's "brand preference" next time around then who exactly is to blame for that?