Re: It's the usual story.
Apple is the B&O of computers. Products that are pleased to look at, they work with all their own peripherals with ease, the output is at least sufficiently high quality, and price double that of their mainstream rivals. And both have traditionally been the antitheses of interoperability.
I am intrigued by your comments about interoperability - my experience is quite the opposite. I can unbox a vanilla Apple device (smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop) and have it online on our open standards based Linux back end using ldap, carddav, caldav, smtp and imap facilities, and use the Net without having to spend a penny extra. Agreed, it's even easier between Apple gear, but it plays quite well with our back end.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
