To most people, that "restriction" makes the thing easier to use. I'm not a technological naif, and I'm no friend of IP restrictions, but I really like how seamless, smooth, and bulletproof the iPhone-iTunes ecology is. And it looks so much nicer than that crap on a Blackberry.
.............
But the point is, it's possible to achieve seamless operation without this restrictiveness -- restrictiveness is not a force multiplier of usability. This is almost like saying you must have Singaporean levels of micro-management to enjoy clean streets.
As I'm sure you know, Apple's FairPlay is a lock-in system, designed to guarantee Cupertino's place in the media revenue stream. To give the Devil his due, FairPlay stand heads and shoulders above other such systems because it's part of an architecture that permits non-protected content in, and is carefully designed to inter-operate nicely between devices within the family.
In other words, Jobs and co. were smart enough to recognise that if you're going to take something away (complete freedom of operation) you have to give something in return (attractive form factors, high usefulness, smooth inter-operability with other members of the product line).
Sony is another company which strives for a mixture of total control and sexy curves.
But these are not unalloyed advances. To repeat myself, once again, and to wind the clock back to an earlier iteration of this discussion, Ubuntu is not hard to use. It does not demand more of your time than Windows or OS X (particularly not, as Andy pointed out, you buy from a vendor such as Dell or, even better, System76 just as you bought your Mac from Apple).
Your Mac is not a more user friendly or trouble-free computer than my Dell running Ubuntu 8.04. I know both platforms quite well; once upon a time, not long ago, I would've been on your side of the aisle. Events have overtaken my old beliefs and changed my ass' seat assignment.
It is possible to achieve ease-of-use without creating a software Jurassic Park.
The argument that 'it's closed but it works' has lost nearly all its strength.
.d.