That's a great idea! That way you'd have the worst of possibilities: software upgrade hell all around ("company X is not upgrading the OS Y on devices Z and W anymore"), hyper-confused buyers (most consumers can't even insert a sim-card without help, let alone pick an OS) and an all-around tendency to nightmarish support experiences ("we don't fix X phones if you install Y on them!")

That would be a huge step back from a consumer perspective, IMHO. The "mobile revolution" is in full effect because the devices have got SIMPLER, not "more open". But I'm sure Stallman and others of his kind would LOVE it...

edit: removed "neckbeards" reference that could sound offensive to more zealous uber-nerds.

While most of your argument is solid, there's no need to bring the level of discussion down to Reddit standards by using terms like "neckbeards". Your last sentence overshadows an otherwise good comment.

I'm really sorry, mentioning Stallman always brings out the worst in me...

There is no way the average consumer would prefer this. The experience of using technology is rightfully becoming less and less technical. Making everyone have to insert physical memory to install an operating system when they buy a phone would be a huge step backwards.

Why would that be a problem? End users already deal with sim cards on a regular basis. With the iphones, end users need to mentally deal with "microSims" vs full size sims used in other phones.

When you sign up for an account, you get 2 chips. One is a sim card for your telephone account, and the other is a microsd card with the OS of choice.

Most phone users never see their sim card. It's installed for them, and they never have occasion to take it out. Having something removable that's put in by the provider, as phone sims usually are, could be fine, but it's not so different from how things are now. The number of people who will want to switch OS on the same phone is probably quite small.

I'd bet most people don't even think about the existence of an OS. The software is just part of the thing they bought.

> Most phone users never see their sim card.

That's a very US-centric statement. In Europe, and other places where border crossings are a daily occurrence, switching SIM cards is a part of life if one wants to avoid huge roaming fees. There's no reason Americans couldn't learn to deal with the same sort of thing.

Moreover, in Europe and other places, contracts are not common and phones can be used with any carrier, so people buy their phones from electronics stores, just like a PC, and then buy a SIM card from a cellular company, then put the SIM card in themselves.

I don't think border crossings are really a daily occurrence for most in Europe. More common than in the US? Sure. But still not anything like a majority of users do this often, and I'm sure almost none of them are happy with having to do so.

Daily is obviously a bit of an overstatement, but Europeans are far more likely to leave their country on business and/or holiday than those of us in the US are. As a result, there is a general understanding that you can make your mobile use much less expensive by swapping sim cards. A knowledge that doesn't exist in the US (which I imagine mobile providers are happy about).

Just because something is required does not make it better. I doubt many Europeans would complain if they didn't have to switch SIM cards at every border.

I'm not saying it's better. I'm saying that it's less painful than many Americans believe, and that if installing the OS yourself with a microSD card became necessary in order to work around the patent system, then it could very well become a reality.

Further to this, it's not unusual to see a massive rack of SIM cards for different networks in practically every supermarket and paper shop you walk into.

This isn't uncommon for us.

I can attest to your last line with my wife- when I talk of the OS on her and my Android it is way over her head. The concept to non-technical users is unfortunately something to be taken care of ahead of time.

Consumers don't want to do this on desktop systems (how many people ever change OS from whatever their hardware came with? 2%? 4%?). Imagine dealing with hardware drivers, etc on your mobile device, plus the risk of bricking it if you try to flash the wrong build.

Although a great idea to foster more competition, it has two fatal flaws. One, now way Apple lets someone install anything but IOS. And two, it would burden the carriers beyond belief to support their customers doing this.