It does matter when you can't get the iPhone 4 jailbroken but you can easily root a new Android phone. Your experience is nice, but not the rule to which everything else is the exception.
I'll say it again. You are not doing the actual grunt work required for the jailbreak/rooting. You're complaining about not getting your free lunch quick enough.
Rooting/jailbreaking introduces the risk of instability. That is all that can be said, factually, about any smartphone. Everything else is anecdotal. For what it's worth, some people who jailbreak their iPhone have to start over more often than is acceptable, too.
Avoiding rooting/jailbreaking is the only guaranteed way to ensure work-without-hassle, regardless of phone.
That's not true at all. I know plenty of people who are not in the least tech savvy but who root/jailbreak their phones regularly. It's important to recognize the distinction between people who look up and follow directions like a recipe in a cookbook and those who get the general idea and take it from there on their own. The former isn't really tech-inclined and is only interested in running an app they heard about or getting some feature that's not enabled. The latter is into it for those reasons and also has a desire to tinker and play for its own sake.
The smart phone still has to be a phone. I don't want a phone that can crash on me. The primary task of a phone is to make and receive phone calls. A device that is more prone to instabilities and crashing due to a JB or rooting is unacceptable to me. Go ask the average layperson and they're likely to tell you the same thing. The iPhone 4, and current Android phones, are full featured enough that only the techy crowd wants/needs to tinker with it.
You're making a big deal out of the difficulty or lack of a jailbreak when 99% of the users don't need it. You bring in your friend and how he returned his iPhone because of a lack of jailbreaking but why did he want to jailbreak his phone? What does a rooted Android phone gain him that the stock iPhone did not have? I'd say to the average person, very very little is gained by a jailbroken or rooted phone except the ability to run unsigned (read pirated) apps.
I am not accusing you or your friend of pirating software. I'm just saying that the average person has no need or use for a jailbreak or rooting. They are not technically savvy enough to even understand why they would want a jailbroken or rooted phone. Likely they did so at the behest of one of their more tech savvy friends.
I was criticizing the need to jailbreak the device to install apps that didn't get the blessing of Steve Jobs.
Then you need to clarify your statements because they were ambiguous. That's not my fault. And Apple is not the only phone company to lock down their phones. Motorola is putting a tighter grip on their phones as well and I'd wager that some of the other companies will do so.
Your opinion is immaterial. It's anecdotal just like my example was. It neither proves nor disproves anything.
Wow. Are you serious. The jackassery in the bolded part in this last comment is beyond words. Your opinion is that my opinion is worthless? Thanks for being a party to non-intelligent debate. All I was saying is that you're complaining about the lack of a free lunch which is not cool in my book. But whatever man. Go keep on complaining that someone else isn't working hard enough for you when they're giving you a free product.
EDIT:
You can reply or not. I'm not going to bother. You're set in your opinion and I'm not going to change them. I don't mind discussing things with people with a different opinion but when you start trashing my opinion and calling it worthless then I leave the discussion. You can disagree with my opinion and I have zero problems with that but to call my opinion worthless? Wow. Just Wow.
Get a grip, and grow up.
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