The key differences between iOS versions and Android versions, as far as branding:
1. A major iOS release always coincides with a hardware revision, and are available at least one hardware revision back. Always. Android OS upgrades are not correlated with hardware revisions at ALL, and the latest hardware from one manufacturer (Dell, case in point) may be 16 months and several major versions out of date!
2. Apple advertises the shit out of new phones & new features (again, they coincide). When have you EVER seen advertising mentioning new Android features? When have carriers EVER touted Android, the OS, much less its version number?
3. (Major) There is no NEED for an Apple fan to know iOS version. Buying an iPhone is buying the latest iOS version. Existing users are told via iTunes that they can update their phone with new software (an iOS upgrade, but they don’t even need to know it’s called that).
4. (Bonus) The different manufacturer & carrier branding "enhancements" to Android muddy the water. Now you have two axes of "versioning": The fork, and the version number. Not so with iOS. (The iPad is out of sync, but this should be resolved before it’s much more than 6 months old.)
5. You NEED to know that iOS 4 will turn your iPhone 3G into a useless lump if you foolishly upgrade to it.
The constant harping on about the utopian world of iDevices gets rather grating, even for me as a long time Apple owner. It's just a different business model, it has ups and downs that affect different people in different ways. Do we need all this concern trolling about how some random device is going to ruin it all for Google? And the utterly predictable replies from iPhone owners so distraught at the thought of Android users facing the horrors of fragmentation? What happened to the old Apple-fan way of blaming those who buy Dell devices for their own stupidity and considering them somehow sub-human as a result of their purchasing decision? Why the sudden rush of humanity and fraternity towards these poor souls?
I could perhaps agree that mostly the Apple way is still better for ordinary joes with lots of disposable income but it used to be better for a far larger group (hence why I bought an iPhone 3G) but the rough'n'tumble world of Android seems to be rapidly eroding the historical advantage Apple held with the iPhone. The fact that Apple will probably have stiff competition in tablets before they even get it upgraded to iOS 4 or release the 2nd hardware revision shows how much of their lead has been lost.
Google has made a clear break with the 1.x vs 2.x series, maybe they need to make that more prominent