Why won't Apple....

[direzze]

For me, customization has always been like a toy. I play with it and then I get bored of it pretty fast.

Also, it usually never looks better than the default. Google Chrome recently got a themes feature, and they are all just horrendous. Simple is best.

 

[fsck-y dingo]

I guess some springboard wallpapers could be too busy. This is the most complex one I use:

My others are even less distracting. For the record that's my reception at home, and in most places, so take that Verizon.

 

[sidewinder]

You guys crack me up. You sound like kids on a playground that are going to take their ball and go home if they don't get their way.

Apple views the iPhone as an appliance. That appliance needs to have a certain look and feel as must perform in a certain way for Apple to have their brand associated with it.

They don't like people changing the look of the phone UI and frankly, most of time how people re-theme their iPhone looks worse than what Apple does.

They don't want people running apps in the background because the performance of the phone can be affected in a negative way.

If the iPhone stays the way Apple shipped it to you, they now that it will work well and as expected. They know it will look good and be user friendly. They can't allow jailbreaking because of support issues and because users will screw up their phones at some point.

It's not big bad Apple. It's Apple protecting their brand and their product. You want a phone you can hack? Buy one that is sold with that ability and stop bitching about Apple....

S-

 

[greygray]

Same thing as what tgmk has said. It's similar to Mac OS X and customization seems to be what Apple does not want. Hopefully we'll see this implemented in the long-term though. New wallpapers would be welcome too.

 

[yorkshire]

I would like a little but of customisation, but not to the degree of some of these jailbroken themes.

 

[Clayne]

If it's done tastefully, it can look really good. Every once in a while, I'll come across a really nice customized theme on a jailbroken phone. I think that's a good option to have.

But I'd give it up in a second in order to have SMS as part of the data plan. Goddamn you AT&T, milking it for all it's worth.

 

[Lara F]

If you have an image under your icons it gets messy and hard to see, I’ve tried it with an old jailbroken one a couple years ago and have seen a few people do it since then

And you don't think users would be able to figure that out for themselves and change the wallpaper if it is too busy??? This isn't a website like MySpace, phones are personal and someone's crap background isn't going to impact another user.

I don't care that much about theming (it's a fringe benefit of jailbreaking to me compared to Backgrounder and 3G Unrestrictor) but that seems like a pretty silly excuse. At least I can get Apple not wanting lags/battery life complaints with multitasking from those unable to manage their apps properly, even if I disagree.