The whole paragraph is a meaningless orthogonal assertion. Jeff wanted to say "look at how Android has progressed", but somehow go waylaid into defending his historic strong iPhone bias, destroying whatever example he might be making.
However, to your point, discarding "tastefulness" as meaningless subjectivity, yes of course you can iterate towards a better, more attractive, more usable user experience.
Anyone who has lived with Android through 1.x on to 2.x and finally to 2.2 would say that many elements have absolutely improved dramatically -- constant usage provides feedback that refines design, while simply having time and resources provides the avenue to implement more advanced UI elements.
And during that time Google has added a number of UI and design experts to the team (again, time and focus: It actually matters now, whereas before they got the core product it didn't). It does seem to be paying off.
However, to your point, discarding "tastefulness" as meaningless subjectivity, yes of course you can iterate towards a better, more attractive, more usable user experience.
Anyone who has lived with Android through 1.x on to 2.x and finally to 2.2 would say that many elements have absolutely improved dramatically -- constant usage provides feedback that refines design, while simply having time and resources provides the avenue to implement more advanced UI elements.
And during that time Google has added a number of UI and design experts to the team (again, time and focus: It actually matters now, whereas before they got the core product it didn't). It does seem to be paying off.