And regardless of how you get your iPhone, you are stuck with Safari as your default browser. I would rather buy a phone that has bloatware (that can be disabled) than buy a phone on which I am not free to change the default applications.

That said, you can have the best of both worlds by buying a Nexus device.

There is plenty of stuff installed on iPhone that people might not want. I can't change the keyboard; I can use a different mail app but not for sending attachments; I don't use safari; etc.

These are all far far nicer that the junk installed by vendors (Orange in the UK is pretty bad). But it's still unwanted software that introduce frustrations for some users.

Depends on what you consider bloatware too though. For instance, the weather app on the iPhone is annoying to me and I never use it, same with the Mail app. I've heard Android users complain about having the Gallery app pre-installed.

Personally I don't consider any of those items bloatware, I just wonder where the line should reasonably be drawn.

Perhaps you don't own an iPhone? Theres a bunch of unremovable crap on mine. A comically bad notes app that loses notes, a poorly implemented reminders app, weather app (branded with a asmall yahoo add), Games Center which I can only assume was made by people who actively hate games, and a stock market app also festooned with yahoo adds.

That's ignoring the disaster that is the unreplaceable browser and mail app.