said by FFH5:This is why Apple & AT&T were such a good fit. Both companies are pathologically controlling and want things their way, no matter what the customer may want.
Prior to the iPhone, I wouldn't agree with this statement. As a Cingular customer one of the things I've liked most about their service was that all the phones I got were pretty much unencumbered. My 3650 wasn't even locked. The tethering features weren't hacked out of my 3650, V559, HTC 3125, blackjack, or HTC 8595. If I wanted my own ringtones I simply put them on my phones. If I wanted pictures out of the phones, I'd do a simple OBEX exchange. Application installs were always unrestricted. There was some AT&T branding stuff loaded in, but it rarely got in my way. Being used to this freedom, I wouldn't touch Verizon with a ten foot pole.
Things like locking billing rates to the type of phone you insert your SIM into didn't appear until after the iPhone launch. This stuff about cutting Google out of Android is a big step in the wrong direction for them.