>>- Necessity to run on ARM processors - low cost, long battery life
- Quick boot and resume from sleep/standby - quick enough to answer an incoming call
- Needed touch interface rather than mouse

Surely soluble? I've seen FP2.0 apps running on touchscreens and my SSD Windows notebook sleeps and wakes almost immediately...

Seems to me that IT has turned into a hobby club for techos who like complicated options with lots of whirly bits. Why stick to the proven model when you can do away with the Start menu or come up with a really cool new OS to your own design? KISS is boring compared to a whiteboard covered in brainstormed arrows or a room full of spinning parts. IT's not alone: BMW did it as well with its more complicated engines, but the benefit is reduction of maintenance schedules so you can drive 50,000 miles before a service and once you reach the workshop they plug in the car and read off the diagnoses. IOW there's a customer purpose and a KISS customer experience. When BMW did mess with (overcomplicate/defamiliarize) the stereo/aircond controls there was a customer backlash and if they'd decided to do away with the accelerator pedal because of a cool new idea, their brand would have tanked. So a whole new mobile OS? Customers showed how they valued that by staying away in droves.