Too bad Google isn't marketing or branding these devices. If your strategy as a vendor is "hope our OS provider's branding sort of rubs off on us" I think you need a different approach.

Also, does anyone else hate killer/doomed/war linkbait as much as I do?

Bwha? It could be that I'm missing sarcasm, but wasn't Apple named the best brand of the 00s, and Jobs the marketer of the decade? There is no way that the company that screwed up the introduction of Buzz is better at marketing or branding than the company that got months of free advertising of its name and product for the cost of one significant demo.

Apple gets millions of dollars in free advertising by keeping things close to its chest—and even stories like this give Apple free advertising because it keeps the Apple name in the headlines.

These sorts of stories are nonsense anyway; the tech industry isn't a zero-sum game. There won't be one winner. There will always be people who only buy Apple products because they're blinded by the RDF. There are those who buy Apple now because the quality's higher, but could see switching if something better comes along—but nothing so far has. There are those who buy nothing Apple because they are also blinded by the RDF.