My understanding is that the transitions & beauty are a 2 part effect on the iphone.

1 being that I have heard UI and interaction designers drive what the software engineers produce. So an application is drawn up from the UI, then coded to meet those needs. The UI is the primary consideration, not the functionality and that is why many apple programs lack "advanced" functionality, in an effort not to confuse grandma.

2. the transitions hide lag on the phone. For instance, a screen rotation does take computing power, and rather than just change screens a la s60, the transition makes the change appear graceful whilst hiding that the phone is processing the change.

3 Also, Jobs personally signs off on every product. Apple is his company and his personality and demands are legandary. I don't think Nokia has this personality to drive innovation in the entire company.

Realistically, what company would have 3 mobile OSs, 1 based on the Linux Kernel and decide it was a great time to come out with a Windows-based netbook? Looking at what other major players (Apple, Google, MS) are doing it is similar to Nokia. Apple has a full build of OSX on their Iphones & Ipod touches, Google developed Android & Chrome and is integrating them with their strong suit of online servies, MS is using .NET to simplify development across platforms.

Nokia has Trolltech & QT, but I think they were about 3 years late with that one. If the N900 beat the iPhone to market, we would probably be talking about Maemo as a major player. Instead, 3 years later, Maemo gets folded into Intel's moblin because it's so shitty from a development aspect. (Which will enrage some on here). But I can fire up Xcode on my Mac or Visual Studio (Student Edition) on a PC and be monkeying around in a few minutes. Android also has a nice toolkit. (I'm a beginner though, so I just like to play around and see if I can get something to load, or create a tiny app that can take care of a few boring regular tasks)

My experience with Maemo led me to give up before getting to "Hello World". I want to like Nokia. But in the US they suck, period. Intel will help them gain US visibility, but at what cost? Losing ARM chips in their phones most likely...don't think that's a great move.

Anyway sorry for the digression, but in a nutshell, I would say Apple has better designers and better QA. They stake their claim on the design of a product. Nokia based their claim on the hardware and "ol' reliable" S60. Womp womp.