It would be nice if that happened but everyone around the world seems to want their iDevice so that they can play in the walled garden. The brand is still strong.

Lame speculation, Apple themselves have clearly mentioned that they will not allow it until there is regulatory clarity.

that's a really easy task for me.. i don't have to do anything. i've never owned any apple products, except for 2 weeks with a second hand 1st gen iphone, which i sold and bought a galaxy s with.

yep i've been a apple fan the second they release the macbook air. What a great innovation! Naturally i endend up having an iphone too.
But now apples politic on bitcoin is forcing me out of the idevice and i'll probably go for android. I'm sad for the 4S which is a very good phone but bitcoin is more important to me than that toy so i'll probably dump it soon.
The gap has shorten with the laptop "air style" so my apple phase is over.

Bitcoin will thrive with or without the support of apple.  While the iphone continues to take a nose dive in the smartphone arena bitcoin continues to thrive and expand.  I'm sure eventually apple will havce no choice but to change their policy.  They are already getting left in the dust but android because of various other reasons (screen size, removable battieries, external sd card storage, etc etc) that I don't they can really continue to exclude bitcoin apps if bitcoin continues to expand at the rate it has been.

I want to get rid of my iphone. What do people suggest as a replacement? I Was a bug Nokia fan back in the day, but haven't had one for years.

I always laugh when I see people with apple device, such brand victim.
Overpriced laptops and useless mobile devices.

This represents nowadays society pretty much  

before you ask for a suggestion you need to understand what you need/want
I guess any mobile can replace it to make a call..

What also bugs me about Apple, is there resistance to NFC.

Phones are not very safe for bitcoin storage.  We need a low cost keyring hardware wallet, like the Trezor, with NFC. Then you hold it to the back of your phone when making a payment, or in the case of a shop, hold it against the shops NFC device, and key in your pin.

I don't think there is any ulterior motive here. This is just the downside apple gets for controlling everything with an iron fist. They are responsible for what happens in their app store because they decided to control it so tightly.

Eventually it will catch up with them(again).