[General Topics] eaglesteve:
I'm afraid I do not complete agree that developers freedom leads to good end user experience. I think there is advantage in having a competent and firm leader who sets good standards and enforces them. Let's face it, there are idiots around with lousy ideas wantng their own way of doing things. A strong leader with good idea is sometimes better than thousands of mediocre ideas. Although for it to work, high quality API that covers as much of the needed scenarios must be provided. That eases and speeds development and enhances quality if the APIs are good. Leaving too much to the device of developers has its downside, look at winmo to see what I mean - end user experience is inconsistent at best.

My view is that openness might work for some areas, but may not be totally good on anything that deals with user interface. Without a single standard, everyone's software will do things differently. Just look at cut and paste for iPhone as as example. Before OS3.0, every developers did it their own ways. Some of those designs are still around today. If you look at some of the Office Documents applications for example, you will find familiar cut and paste in Document to Go and Office2, but not for quickoffice because it uses it's method of doing cut and paste (I think the application was created prior to the API being available). This is the direct result of not setting standards early.

Unfortunately Apple is not forcing the standard consistently IMO. It still allows developers to get away with non-standard design. Sometimes developers use the same tool to create software for all hardware platform. The approach is efficient and productive from developers viewpoint, but the look and feel is not optimized for each hardware platform. Take Sygic Navigation software as example, it is actually a fantastic application from functionalities viewpoint. However, I really don't like its user interface. It does not even use the standard keyboard of iPhone, and I really really hate its keyboard. It's scrolling is jerky, pinch and zoom lacks refinement. It is very winmo like and too similar to the TomTom on winmo. It is clunky and ugly. I wish Apple had forced Sygic to follow the standard before allowing it to be listed. In contrast, TomTom and Navigon are extremely fun and pleasurable to use because it is developed specifically with iPhone's characteristics in mind, and things are done using Apple's standard API as much as possible.

On the flip side, of course the will be areas which Apple did not have any API for and vendors are stucked in such cases and perhaps limited. That's a downside of not being open. But, over time, Apple will provide the missing and new API to fill in the missing links, so things should get better and better. There are also areas which I think Apple has over-controlled the developers. For example, it does not allow developers to have applications which overlaps with what Apple already has, and I think this is a wrong and unjustifiable policy. There are also other controls which I hate. For example, Apple had never allowed VOIP to use 3G, insisting that it must be over wifi. This was obviously AT&T's idea, and users have to jailbreak to bypass that restriction. So, in such areas, I like Google's freedom.

Overall, complete openness will lead to fragmentation. No two ways about it, and it is not always a good thing from end user perspective. You win some, you lose some. It is hard to argue that iPhone users do not have good user experience in anycase as a result of these restriction on the developers, although I can hear the frustration of developers wanting complete freedom to express their creativity. Sometimes developers are simply unable to deliver certain features due to the limitations of the standard APIs. While it might be tempting to open the floodgate and let everyone solves the problem their way, there is also merits in waiting for the next SDK to provide the new, tested, and quality controlled APIs.

The fact that people would have to resort to Apps2SD is clearly the fault of Google, hence it is hard to argue that Android has superior memory management. What's the point of such an expensive phone but users can't install all the programs they want?

If it is a work phone, you probably would not have jailbroken it and tried something like this customization tool to give you the wallpaper yet, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU_lYMqmwF4&feature=related

This is not even using the winterboard for themes yet!

These tools were before OS4.0 gave users the ability to have wallpaper on the desktop. Now with OS4.0, there would be even more options.

Still don't like the restriction? Well, jailbreak! I don't like Apple telling me to not jailbreak. I don't like apple telling me what I can do with my phone. I don't like not having the freedom to code my application anyway I want. If this is you, have your applications listed on Cydia! Some of the sexy applications Apple rejected are in Cydia now. We don't always have to take everything Apple says, you know? Of course, some of use will say "I hate Steve Job's policy so much that I would never buy his phone", and that's a choice too. For me, I just look at what I can do with the product and not be affected by my feeling towards the man. The truth is, the quality of the applications in Cydia varies greatly in quality, and some are crash prone and unstable, so be careful. These applications sometimes do things which Steve Jobs says they're not suppose to do, for example, having their own GPS location tracking service (to hunt down your stolen phone) that drains the phone's battery in 2 hours, which would never be approved for the App Store.

I actually quite like the way it is now. Users are free to decide if they only want to use only Apple approved applications or to also use Cydia's. Both type of users go in with their eyes open and at the end everyone is happy.

What I'm unhappy is Apple's repeated attempt to stop jailbreaking. THIS is one of the key reasons I'm exploring Android. The day Apple completely succeed in stopping the jailbreak will also be the day many people abandoning it - unless all the missing functionalities are included in the new firmware. Since I'm not a developers, I don't care if I can still develop software using my own creativity and have it sold via Cydia.