I'm begginning to find myself bored... with this phone.

History = the past, not "the future."

The iPhone raised the bar, sure, though you're giving Apple too much credit for the App Store and iTunes.  With respect to those two things, all they've really done is given us a prettier version of what already existed (Verizon had Get It Now before the iPhone, much less the Apple App Store, was out, and the iTunes Store on the iPhone is just another OTA music download interface).  And there's nothing so inherently new about the distribution model for the apps, either, as I mentioned before.  In large part, the iPhone just put a shiny polish on things that already existed.

I don't think the usefulness or number of apps is really all that attributable to Apple, beyond that Apple chose to have the iPhone based on a mobile version of OSX and Java.  As for the way Apple manages the apps and decides which ones to release, it doesn't sound like that much of an improvement (if any) over what Verizon does.  Apple's lockdown on what apps will be allowed has irked developers to the point of drawing ire from New York Times tech blogs (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/apples-capricious-app-policy/ ) and Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/5051273/how-apple-picks-which-apps-make-it-to-the-app-store) alike.  Postings on Engadget have been less-than-friendly toward Apple's operation of the App Store process as well.  I think the large number of apps available on the iPhone can mainly be attributed to two things:  1) everyone is eager to get on the Apple platform just because they assume that Apple automatically means "cool, different, and popular"; 2) the iPhone SDK is free.  I think #2 is particularly key.  The proprietary nature of BREW means that any potential developers have to pay a lot of fees to Qualcomm to get licenses and permission to code using the BREW platform, which discourages a lot of developers who might otherwise create great apps from getting on board with BREW.

Also, we do have to keep in mind that people who submit BREW apps for Get It Now aren't making apps "for the LG Dare" in the same way that developers are designing apps "for the iPhone."  Anybody who's interested in designing BREW apps will want their app to have the widest coverage possible (in order to recoup the money they paid in for licensing fees and what have you), and as a result, they will design apps that will work with as many BREW phones as possible... most of which are standard dial-pad phones with far smaller screens and lower processing capabilities.  The incentive simply isn't there for people to work on Dare-only apps.  This is arguably Verizon's fault, for not demanding that the Dare be designed to run on a more sophisticated platform like Windows Mobile, but it doesn't reflect on the quality of the Get It Now implementation, nor does the fact that Apple has a greater and better selection in its App Store indicate that Apple's operating model for the App Store is in any way better or more groundbreaking (or different, for that matter) from Verizon's operating model for Get It Now.

But what has Apple DONE to contribute to the fact that people are making apps, aside from selecting a platform that's more popular and less cost-inhibitive than BREW?  Their business model is exactly the same as Get It Now.  They vet out all the apps that would actually be worth paying money for.  So what if 18 new turn-your-phone-into-a-flashlight apps appear on the App Store?  Same for iTunes - what has Apple actually DONE that makes their iTunes model so innovative?  Nothing.  Their DRM and file formats are restrictive, and they can't be troubled to keep a record of what songs you've purchased so that you can re-download your library in the event of catastrophic loss.  I was an anti-iTunes holdout and I actually got on iTunes and Napster (the resurrected music store Napster, not the original).  Hands-down, I loved Napster more than iTunes.  I could play their files in media players that weren't iTunes, and they let me access my entire purchase history just by logging in with my account.  I was eventually forced over to iTunes only because Napster, as a music store, was younger, and at the time had fewer contracts with recording companies to sell their music.  Most of their success with iTunes can probably be chalked up to the fact that they had the happy coincidence of being first on the scene with the whole 99 cent per song download store and thus had more time to acquire distribution agreements with the big labels, but again, that doesn't make them "the future."  It makes history, certainly.  But history is just that - history.  It's the past.  The future of selling digital media won't be found by attempting to emulate Apple's DRM-heavy, proprietary, restrictive business model any more than the future of cell phone application distribution will be found by the app distribution models used by Verizon and Apple.