Sure, it is a trade off and you misunderstand me if you think I'm attacking Apple because of some "be free or die" mentality. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm typi

Sure, it is a trade off and you misunderstand me if you think I'm attacking Apple because of some "be free or die" mentality. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm typing this on a Mac and actually own an iPhone, even if I use a HTC Desire instead. But that doesn't make caring about freedom "thoughtless spin". Using words like that doesn't do justice to a legitimate concern. Getting locked into a platform is a serious pain. I also don't agree with the idea that you can do pretty much whatever you want on Android as it comes pre-installed on your phone, which is how most regular people use their phones (just like the fact that they don't jailbreak their iPhones). That argument seems like the same black and white "free" vs. "draconian lock down" comparison that you disagree with. Apple knows that mainstream consumers don't care about freedom, just like most citizens don't really care about limitations to their civil rights until it gets to the point where they are groped by the TSA on the airport (i.e. the "if you've got nothing to hide..." mentality). Living in a country like Singapore definitely has its benefits, just as closed computer platforms do. If you're not a power user your data usually doesn't matter that much, anyway, so losing it if you switch to another system doesn't seem like such a big deal when you're deciding about what product to buy. This is exactly the reason why people buy a new version of Microsoft Office every two years. To me, however, my data matters and I get frustrated when I can't synch my iPhone from my GNU/Linux box without jumping through all sorts of hoops. I might not be the typical user, but I still want free platforms to disrupt closed ones (note that disrupt doesn't mean that I don't want them to coexist; choice is good). Just like I want (old versions of) Internet Explorer to die in favor of more open alternatives. Just to clarify: this is not a black and white position and I don't have anything against Apple, or even Microsoft (in fact, I think Microsoft is more open than Apple these days). My main point was that having more features doesn't make or break a product, but that being said the side-note about freedom was a serious concern that I deeply care about when it comes to investing time and data into a platform.