There are the ridiculous app store policies (which is a HUGE problem) but there are also little things. For instance, have you ever tried to use an iPhone in bed? I keep mine sitting next to my pillow so that I can listen to music while I fall asleep...
Doing this is a huge pain in the butt. If you turn the thing sideways to change songs, it goes into the oh-so-useless "cover flow" interface. If I'm browsing the web, the phone decides that it should rotate the screen for me...
These things are fixed...but only if you void your warrant and jailbreak it...why? Honestly, the only thing I can come up with is that it is some stupid power trip by the folks at apple... "Bah! We designed it that way and we're never wrong!" JUST EFFING FIX THIS GUYS! It's a very very common problem.
I was traveling last week...my laptop's battery needs very badly to be replaced (only holds about a half hour of charge anymore), so I decided to transfer some podcasts to my phone so I could listen to them on the plane...now, this isn't as simple as most of the blackberries I've ever owned (the blackberries, if you're not aware, simply get mounted as an external storage device...copy and paste MP3s to it and it will happily play them for you), but firing up iTunes should be too much a problem, right?
Wrong. iTunes refuses to add songs to the device unless I erase everything on it and "sync" it to my laptop. WTF? Apple, this is completely unnecessary! So I lose everything on my iPhone in order to listen to a couple of podcasts? What the hell, Apple.
Okay, howabout email syncing? 4 times an hour at the most. Seriously? The phone is absolutely capable of more than this! So it will hurt the battery a bit more, I don't care! Warn me about it when I select "check email 1 time per minute".
Don't even get me started on Google voice (which I use as my primary phone number and voicemail)...
And then there is flash...
Oh, and howabout the newest version of their iPod? You cannot disable having album artwork take over half of your screen? Why the hell not?! These just seems like more power-tripping my Apple/Jobs.
I've played with the iPad (while I was waiting in the apple store for three hours for my appointment with the "genius bar"), it seems...kindof neat I guess? But apple leaves such a sour taste in my mouth from the experiences I've had with the iPhone that I cannot imagine myself ever buying one.
Why should I have to pay an extra fee to apple (mobile me) or microsoft (exchange) in order to get basic functionality?
What has "should" got to do with anything at all?
Email syncing is pretty straightforward, push the button to sync.
Most of your complaints seem pretty benign if you ask me.
Basically "We're right, we don't care about your problems, piss off."
Why can't I get the same sort of rotation lock for my iPhone? (well, I can, but it was something that was made by the community and something that will void my iPhone's warranty [which is funny because I am literally on hold right now with the apple store to make another appointment with the "genius bar" because the phone is currently only displaying a white screen])
That's always the case with usability things, isn't it? The problem is that on the iPhone you can't fix them.
for all the reasons you cite and more
Other limitations Apple puts on their devices come in second. I'm a very technical person. I would be happier having another gadget with Linux on it.