Well often they are, especially in a complex piece of software like a phone OS. Customizability requires trade-offs which may affect usability or performance. More often than not, software that allows skinning looks butt-ugly in the default setting and integrates poorly with the rest of the system (think Java desktop applications etc).

Anyway, you still seem to assume I hate customization just because I have no need for it, while my original comment was about one thing, and one thing only: that customization isn't actually a very strong argument to compare mobile OS'es on, primarily because better defaults always beat customizability (and IMO, looking past the homescreen, taking all aspects of the OS and ecosystem into account, iOS is still miles ahead of Android in that regard), but also because it isn't all that interesting to (I assume) most smartphone users.

>> I've also never really understood the toddler argument for 'well-designed'. 'Simple', sure, but not 'well-designed'.

I'd say 'simple' is almost the penultimate goal of UI design, especially when you are talking about something as complex as a mobile phone. Today everyone takes for granted that even your granny can use a smartphone, but you only have to go back to Windows Mobile to appreciate how much the iPhone has done for smartphone usability. Android users can only be thankful for that because they are profiting from these advancements just as well.

>> We don't consider this for any other thing we do - board games aren't considered poorly designed if a toddler can't play them [..]

I think this is a bit silly, because most board games are intended to be hard, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in playing and winning them. I fail to see the relevance of the other examples. My impression is that you are thinking about 'well-designed' in terms of aesthetics, while I'm thinking about usability and ergonomics. In that context, well-designed is almost a synonym of 'simple' and 'easy to use'. Kids can now operate a smartphone and do things that my parents would have been dumbfounded if they had to do them on a regular PC, yet my mom is perfectly able to find, install and run applications on her iPad, and use it for everything she previously hated to use her PC for. To me, that means we've made progress in terms of usability.

>> I also don't really understand your last paragraph - again, you see to be arguing against customisation because you don't enjoy it

That's a strange way of reading what I wrote, because I what I was saying is that I actually used to enjoy customization until I lost interest in it and found out it almost always makes things worse, not better.

Actually, if you buy a phone on contract, you didn't pay the full price and aren't entitled to the same rights as someone who paid the full $650+tax sticker price and gets it SIM-unlocked.

[..]

>> If you jailbreak you are forever a fugitive. You can never again just update, you have to wait and make sure it doesn't kill your setup. You can end up losing your warranty, be refused tech support, etc

Well, in a sense that's an inherent risk of customizability, a tradeoff you have to make. Home screen customizations are probably perfectly safe on stock Android, but I'm not sure how more intrusive modifications will affect updating Android phones that are heavily skinned by the manufacturer (ie: most of them). Maybe I'm wrong, but I suppose you can forget about applying major updates to a Samsung TouchWiz or HTC Sense phone without either undoing or screwing up all your customizations, or in the worst case even bricking your phone to the point it needs a factory reset. If customization was at the top of my feature list, I wouldn't risk anything but a stock Android device.

>> Finally, from a philosophical standpoint, it is absolutely absurd that I should ever have to break something I have paid for to take full ownership of it.

From a philosophical point of view you can have all kinds of opinions, assertions and beliefs about anything. In reality, what you are calling absurd applies to a very significant majority of products you can buy in stores. You can tune your car, but don't expect the dealer to fix it under warranty. You can modify the OS on your desktop computer, but don't expect Microsoft or Apple to supply patches to the problems you may introduce, or even make sure stock patches don't break your setup. You can make most electronic devices do things they were never designed for, but the risk of breaking them is all on you.

Here on HN, we take customizing hardware and software for granted and think it's only natural to modify it to make it better suit our needs, but I don't think a whole lot of people around here think the same about modifying (for example) their furniture, their clothes, their kitchen appliances, etc. But I'm pretty sure their are lots of people on other websites talking about exactly those kinds of things, people who wouldn't even think about customizing their mobile phone or PC. I realize this is getting a little tangential, but the point here is that if you really want to, you can modify almost anything, but almost always the risk is on you, whether you like it (from a philosophical standpoint or otherwise) or not. I don't see what makes mobile phones so special that you should expect the manufacturer to provide you with the tools to modify them, especially when there are alternatives that allow it out of the box. No-one forces you to use an iPhone ;-)