Development

Hey, I work for Verizon Wireless, and not only does VZW have its own services that usurp what would normally come with a phone (GPS, for instance) but it also puts a standard interface on each and every phone. Boring? Yeah. Limiting? Yeah. But the reason is because for support purposes, people have to be trained. We aren't whizzes at cell phones when we're hired, and having one interface across all phones, no matter what brand, makes it so, so, so, so much easier for us to help people out when they call and spit and sputter about their phone not working. Even the amount of customization allowed on cell phones can be a problem when I have an irritated customer who's on his lunch break from his soul crushing job on the other end. Having one general UI lightens the support load by at least a ton.

That said, I appreciate being a T-Mobile customer and having my SE TM506, which is pretty much just Sony Ericsson, not T-Mobile (in terms of the UI, anyway).