Indeed this is something that has bothered me for 20 years, though significantly more so as phones have come to resemble general purpose computers more than jus

Indeed this is something that has bothered me for 20 years, though significantly more so as phones have come to resemble general purpose computers more than just phones. Back then, I explicitly bought a Cingular phone instead of Verizon, because it ran a stock flavor of the Motorola OS, rather than the custom whatever that Verizon models shipped with which didn't let you install mp3 ringtones or j2me games.