Comment by PopePompus

Yes, the under appreciated secret sauce Apple had was a brand with enough prestige that they could dictate terms to Cingular Wireless. Cingular couldn't put bloatware on it, they couldn't load it with crappy video "services" that played 15 second clips of football games for $19.95 per month. They couldn't charge a fee for a map app. They couldn't even paste their logo on it. Etc., etc.