I think, to get back to the matter at hand, that Apple has no more right to tell you what apps you should have on your phone than, say, Sony to tell you what DVD to watch. Or the BMW corporation to tell you what gas to put in your car. The same Apple can't tell you what software to put on your MacBook. I think they're controlling, however, which apps you can and can't put on your iPhone, and I think that's wrong. AT&T tried to engage into this type of behavior years ago (when it was BellSouth Mobility) and tried to prevent you from switching to competition (largely nonexistent at the time) by telling you might damage your phones or send wrong signals and completely disable cell towers or other such nonsense. I think, however, that we as consumers pretty much go with it except for the risk-taking few that jailbreak their phones in order to gain access to apps that aren't Apple-controlled.
It's not AT&T's practices, imho, that are restrictive - it's Apple's. So it's a choice everyone has to make for themselves - to keep iPhone and be limited to its app store, to jailbreak the iPhone and take a risk of what they promise is an undoubted doom to your device, or to "quit iPhone." The trouble with quitting iPhone is, however, that every other manufacturer is going to the same type of practice, with app store, with proprietary this or that, and the consumer will be tied to it one way or another. Thus, in a matter of being boxed in no matter what, I choose iPhone since it's the best device out there.
But I don't have to like it or pretend I don't see what they're doing to me when they restrict my freedom of what apps I might want to choose to utilize on my device.
It's not AT&T's practices, imho, that are restrictive - it's Apple's. So it's a choice everyone has to make for themselves - to keep iPhone and be limited to its app store, to jailbreak the iPhone and take a risk of what they promise is an undoubted doom to your device, or to "quit iPhone." The trouble with quitting iPhone is, however, that every other manufacturer is going to the same type of practice, with app store, with proprietary this or that, and the consumer will be tied to it one way or another. Thus, in a matter of being boxed in no matter what, I choose iPhone since it's the best device out there.
But I don't have to like it or pretend I don't see what they're doing to me when they restrict my freedom of what apps I might want to choose to utilize on my device.