As far as I know, the only way to get an iphone new in Argentina would be either buy one from a private party on mercado libre, or buy one from an authorized dealer- the apple store doesnt sell them. The "authorized dealers" would be Movistar, Personal, and Claro- except none of them are selling iphones either.
Which means, you buy one that has been smuggled in, for a really high price, or you dont get one.
As far as the apple/pc battles- everybody has different needs, and wants.
Apple actually does just fine, selling computers AND phones- and not everybody who buys one is some kind of sucker.
Historically, there was a point where there were fifty PC's sold for every mac- last year, 2012, it was down to 20 PC's for every mac- that is a HUGE market takeover by apple.
Currently, I run Windows on 3 machines, and apple operating systems on 6. Both have their advantages and drawbacks. Neither is significantly cheaper, if you are just looking to buy a product and use it, as opposed to studying computer science and building your own. I have had to repair a fair amount of apple stuff- some things are easy to fix, others not. For me, Apple products are often the cheapest, lowest maintenance solution.
But hey, buy whatever you want to buy.
Just dont judge Apple by the prices they get for em in Argentina- because Argentina is the single highest price, worldwide, for iphones, ipads, ipods, and imacs.
That would be like saying, Porsches are ridiculously overpriced, because they cost $300k in Argentina. When in Cali, right now, a used Boxster can be had for $7500 on Craigslist.