Hello, I'm more of a lurker and love reading the banter about all this, but there seem to be really the haters of Apple and Steve and those who actually have some first have knowledge and experience.
First, about OS X not being innovative and Linux being the big consumer *NIX. Well the truth is that no operating system based on 70's technology as Linux or OS X is would be considered innovative so much as evolutionary.
No OS X is not nearly as innovative as was the Amiga OS when it hit the scene. That is a leap in innovation that has yet to be even remotely repeated by any OS. Yet as a *NIX engineer with 18 years in Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux, and now OS X, I will without hesitation say that only OS X has successfully done what no other *NIX has ever done and that is to put *NIX in the hands of the consumer in the way OS X has. Linux is still for the expert user, datacenter, and hobbiest. if anything, it's eating into the Datacenter taking over tasks once heald by other unixes and Windows server. It's on cheap, yet barely successful cheap PCs, and in many embedded devices, but it's not a mass market Unix desktop. Yet.
Where Apple is innovative is that you now have essentially in every major city, a unix computer store in the upscale malls. Unix computers with Genius Bars, awesome software apps, rabid fan base, and the creative market in Apple heaven.
So Linux has it's place in business, hobbiest, expert-users, and OS X owns the creative and home market. This is of course not counting Windows.
As for the iPhone. As an early adopter, I can say I was stupid to buy the damn thing at the price I bought it for, with the apps it had, but now, since iPhone 2.0 software update, this sucker has me almost as excited as the first time I bought my first Amiga (almost, nothing beats my first Amiga experience)
What the iPhone has become, is an awesome new computing platform. The real unsung platform is the iPod Touch and screw the phone part.
So Steve hating aside. Apple's marketing machine aside. You must recognize that Apple's ability to leapfrog Linux in the consumer space to make a platform that my mother and grandmother can use and create a new computing platform in the for of the ipod touch and iphone is awesome. If you ever used them, then there is no doubt, if you've only watched from a distance, then you will never understand.
The sad part about all of this is that the damn Amiga STILL has innovative concepts and implementations that STILL have yet to be trounced.
If we could ever find an Asshole like Steve Jobs and the machine of Apple to get behind Amiga is a real way by facelifting the interface, providing a new computing hardware platform, and put any sexiness back, there is no reason why we could not also evolve our earlier most innovative platform beyond where OS X, Linux, and Windows are today in at least technical superiority.
-Alex
Linux - Evolutionary branch from UNIX. No real innovation only evolution
OS X - Evolutionary branch from UNIX. Innovative user experience for UNIX
Amiga OS - Revolutionary OS and experience. Stagnant. Dumb-ass owners
Windows Vista - Evolutionary build on horrible OS