I assume Apple only allows you to use itunes to play music unless you jailbreak the phone? There are a bunch of different apps for media playback on android, so you're bound to find something you like. I mainly use the google play music player, since I uploaded my library to google when I bought my Nexus 4. Amazon is pretty good as is Noozy, if you want one that looks like Windows phone 7/8. I don't know about audiobooks though, as I don't listen to them.
iTunes does let you play any music you want but if playing mp3 file audiobooks it can't keep your place effectively if you pause. Plus the controls issue I mentioned earlier is annoying. If I could line the buttons up vertically just that would make a huge difference.
I would go with SwiftKey over swype. They added a swype like feature to it and it's prediction is spooky good. I have no experience with Safari so I can't compare it to the various android browsers. I use Chrome, but the default browser is decent, plus Dolphin HD and Firefox were good last time I used them.
Certainly not but the reality for Motorola and HTC (to a lesser extent) is if they don't simply WOW everyone with a device they must rely on a Samsung misstep to get back into the game.
Despite reinstalling Swype it continues to be slow and laggy on my Nexus 4, the keyboard takes ages to appear. As a result I've switched to swiftkey but finding it really difficult at the moment, even the stock android swipe keyboard is better!
Just curious, but your measure of productivity is... what, exactly? My phone complements my day-to-day, it doesn't replace it (or detract from it).
What is the issue with it? I switched to Swiftkey a while ago because I was tired of Swype constantly being in "beta" and never having an official release. Even before they added the Swype feature to Swiftkey, I was able to type so much faster on it due to the word prediction. For me the Swype functionality works great on Swiftkey.