The iPhone’s dominance of J.D. Power’s semi-annual consumer satisfaction surveys has become so routine that the venerable marketing company’s press release Thursday buried the news after six paragraphs about how owners who use their phones for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like are measurably happier with their smartphones than those who don’t.

What struck me was not how many little gold dots Apple’s (AAPL) smartphone earned in the satisfaction chart posted below the fold — five in every category but battery function, just like last time and the time before — but how many its competitors lost.

HTC and Motorola (MOT), which have been riding the Google (GOOG) Android bandwagon, lost a dot apiece in overall satisfaction, ease of operation, operating system (!) and battery function. Palm (HPQ) and Samsung lost a dot here and there. Nokia (NOK) and Research in Motion (RIMM) were unchanged.

J.D. Power’s survey was fielded between July and December 2010 among 7,275 smartphone owners.

Below: The satisfaction grid. For the full report, click here.

Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped.