Not sure the white paint is relevant, there are quite a few white androids (most notably the HTC One X, which in my opinion is the best looking phone on the market).

>Not to mention they use forging instead of casting for the aluminum bodies

Apple currently CNC mills all their aluminum bodies.

Yea, well you have to think about what they're optimizing on - I'm sure that you can equal them on some things - but holistically you can't do it for a competitive price. Apple improves where it gives the most bang - and right now they're not really in a "specs war".

They don't play the commodity game - they market on new features, not better - even the better screen was a "First time ever Retina level" where they introduced PPI as a new metric