[Nexus 4 Themes and Apps] Rukbat:
The comparison is that we shouldn't limit what's available just because some people might misuse it.

I've only been one for 40 years, so I'm by no means an expert yet.

That's my point. If you develop an app that allows me to get better use of my phone, but in the hands of someone who doesn't know root from turnip can turn his phone into molten silicon, that's no reason your app shouldn't be available to whoever wants to use it.

The fact that everyone who knows how to drag & drop thinks he's a programming genius shouldn't limit apps to just those people who actually know how to use them. If someone wants to take your perfectly usable app and brick his phone with it after you put a warning on the description that misusing the app can brick the phone, that's on him. (I know, you're going to get the nasty email and the 1 star rating, and that's not right, but until Google insists on seeing a programming degree before letting you download adb, it's going to happen. And people will continue to flash ROMs to an N3 with Safestrap, then blame the ROM dev. [It's human nature - If something I did turned out wrong, whom do I blame? ME? Of course not, I never make mistakes.])

It is - for those who shouldn't be using certain apps. We have all sorts of ROMs for 900A N3s. So what do we do when Joe Know-nothing flashes one of them to his N900A and hard bricks it? Stop writing ROMs? Of course not. The ROM developer usually puts huge bold red letters at the top of the first post saying, in effect, "hey, if you aren't certain that you know what this stuff is all about, move on to the next thread - this one isn't for you".

I not only have no problem with your writing root apps, I've probably used some of them, if only to see what the UI looked like, or if it really did what it said. I don't mind bricking a phone - I have a Samsung Jig on the table in case the phone decides to die. And I have an idea - not even fully thought out yet - but Linux should know its own, so if we ran the motherboard, with the CPU halted and tri-stated, with a Linux box JTAGed to it ... I have to find a phone I'm willing to destroy first, and my Note 3s aren't on the short list.

But I think you misread me and we're on the same side. If Joe Blow wants to put sugar in his gas tank, the stores shouldn't stop selling sugar. And if he wants to turn off data permissions to his Facebook app, then complain that it's not working, Google shouldn't take App Ops off the site. But an app that throws an error should catch the error and describe it nicely, not "Force Close", but maybe "data connection permission disabled by user - Facebook must access data connection to work". Google didn't think of that one. (They didn't think of a lot of things - but they never forgot to think of things that kept the green rolling in.)

Trust me - in 40 years I've been on the "it's your fault" end when the fault was user error. Many times, over many jobs. So I know the frustration that comes with "I cripple the app, or I get email-bombed". What's worse is when it's freeware. You get the app for nothing, but you expect me to pay you because it didn't do what you thought it would do (even though the description plainly said it wouldn't)? That's one of the reasons I gave up writing freeware. If you want to abuse me for something that's your fault, at least pay me.

But please don't assume that I don't know what it's like to be a developer. The only problem is that no matter how idiot-proof you make the program, someone keeps coming up with better idiots.