Your friends like Arrrrrpps /bad piracy joke
I think you won't be able to convince these people, as Android will always be more open (I wouldn't want it that way). But how people can act like the iPhone 5 is anything more than a weak update that barely closes the gap between the 4S and newer alternatives is beyond me.
The first iPhone blew me away. The iPhone 4/4S is still in my top 3 device designs and things like Retina, the camera, FFC and Siri were things that WP just couldn't match. But the iPhone 5, or really anything they showed yesterday, was completely underwhelming.
I never thought just how crucial Steve Jobs has been for their devices.