How could Apple possibly know what "end user experience" best suits me? If I install Google Voice, then that -IS- the end user experience I want! If Microsoft pulled that, they would get dinged for trying to push out the competition. Replace "Google Voice" with "IE" for example in Apple's reply, and "iPhone" with "Windows". This is exactly why the iPhone software environment is poison. Apple should not be allowed to decide what kind of "end user experience" I want on my hardware. Yes, if I purchased the hardware from Apple for the "hardware experience", then that means that I liked the "hardware experience" over other vendors, but that doesn't mean I like, or should be required to use their software! All "computing devices" should be "reconfigurable" using software, thats why software exists! Not to lock you into some Nazi form of "I know best what is for you" mentality. Open the devices up vendors!

Related: Buy the phone first, then choose your cell service vendor! NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! Enough with hardware-cell service vendor tie-up aggreements!

This is a strange response, and one that isn't worthy of a reply, but I will nonetheless reply to it.

It is obvious that if "I" were something else, then "I" would not be "me". And if the "not me" ideas about the world were different, then the "not me" might "require", "want", or have "needs" that are different from "mine". However those ideas are still not god-like qualities (characteristices) in any situation.

I don't pretend to know the minds of gods, or "the" god, yet I can "by definition" rule out those characteristics of un-god-like minds. That is, unless you believe that gods are just like ordinary people, with faults just like our own. This pretty much demotes gods to earthly kinds, or at least aliens from other worlds with technologies beyond our own.

In which case this brings us right back to (again) "theological non-cognitivism"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism

It is very annoying when someone (like you) responds to my posts in such a way as to frame everything in cultural relativism. If every persons unique ideas were the truth, then we would have no need for discussion of any kind. Going on the assumption that you are right, then there are no absolutes, and gods don't exist anyway.

So ok, I gladly agree.

Narcissism is a human fault. What would a god need with worship? If I were a god that "invented" the universe and the humans within it, I certainly would not "require", "want", or "need" any kind of worship whatsoever. Worship is something that was demanded, or desired by earthly kings, and is narcissistic. Worship probably arose out of the "alpha male" aspect of the human animal social groups, or "tribes". The whole idea of worship is utterly silly indeed.

Monty Python's "Holy Grail" made the worship idea poignant in the following exchange...

GOD: Oh, don't grovel! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people groveling.
ARTHUR: Sorry--
GOD: And don't apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy". What are you doing now!?
ARTHUR: I'm averting my eyes, oh Lord.
GOD: Well, don't. It's like those miserable Psalms-- they're so depressing. Now knock it off!

When most people argue or debate the existence of a "god", most of the time all the "believers" really want is that you "worship" something that they believe in. This is quite shameful actually.

Also since when did the word "god" start standing in for the "name" of the being, and not the "description" of the thing?

The word "god" is mostly "without meaning" anyway. So you can politely ignore people who discuss it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism/

(control)
duh

... the ebook purchase "The Catcher in the Rye" is right out then, eh?