Sharp commentary, Thomas. One thing that sticks out to me is how Apple straightjackets their products. Apple corals the entire user experience down a narrow path. Power-users hate the constraint of this Apple straightjacket, but at the same time, new consumer-level customers -- grandma with her iPad and cousin Alice with her iPod touch -- benefit from the simplicity of the straightjacketed experience.
Once again, I'll point to Mac OS X as a counterexample to the theory that providing a good experience to normal users requires denying control to power users.
Those decisions are Apple's prerogatives. When they lock OS X down, I'll scream bloody murder right along with you for the bait-and-switch. But nobody bought an iPhone because they thought it'd be easy to tinker with.
