i suspect that part of the hype comes from its integration with itunes.

if you use itunes as your desktop player and ipod as your on the go, the database in both will be synced up so that over time the computer will be able to guesstimate what your tastes for the moment is given your reaction (skip or listen) to a song.

bayesian to the nth...

as jobs would say, apple is in the biz of building the whole widget. that is, they tune the experience from a to z. your not just getting a piece of electronics with a apple product, your getting a whole show and dance...

the osx desktop for example is a mix of cute and informative. windows getting sucked onto the dock, icons jumping from same in a manner somewhat similar to a kid jumping up and down for attention, expose actually animating the resize of the windows, not just blinking them into being. hell, trigger front row and the desktop will fade out, not simply work a bit and have the ui blink into being.

same deal with the iphone ui, its a song and dance routine. there to entertain as much as be used. and apple will not allow anything to interfere with that, so third party apps will be second class citizens, no questions about it...