I think that's overstating the case quite a bit. Apple's design prowess is formidable, but they're hardly the only company with those strengths. They basically had to copy Android's superior notification system for iOS 5, for instance. And with the new task switcher and widgets in Android 3.1 I think iOS's static grid of icons is starting to look conservative and stale.
Sony and Samsung have come up with some nice hardware designs and Windows 7 is a reasonable competitor to OS X in my opinion. Apple has been held up as the paragon of industrial design for so long that we're too willing to accept whatever they do as the "right" thing. Frankly I'm a little tired of their vanilla aesthetic and things like the ridiculous Time Machine UI indicate to me that they've lost their way to some extent.
Sony and Samsung have come up with some nice hardware designs and Windows 7 is a reasonable competitor to OS X in my opinion. Apple has been held up as the paragon of industrial design for so long that we're too willing to accept whatever they do as the "right" thing. Frankly I'm a little tired of their vanilla aesthetic and things like the ridiculous Time Machine UI indicate to me that they've lost their way to some extent.