CNET UK's Rich Trenholm recently wrote an editorial with the attention grabbing headline of "Why I don't want an iPhone any more". The article is something of a catharsis, and coming to terms with his separation from the iPhone which he was a fan of for many years. The theme's to take away from the piece echo our own conversations about user interface design here on the All About Windows Phone Insight Podcast.

It's an interesting read, but be ready to resist the troll baiting bits like;

I loved the iPhone. It was pretty, it was fun, it did everything I wanted it to. Which makes it all the more weird that just a few short years later, I wouldn't be seen dead with one.

The original iPhone was revolutionary. That's just a fact. (This is the point where some early adopters start banging on about the Nokia N95 having the Internet and apps, but that's like comparing a steam engine to an Aston Martin because they both have wheels.)

However, Rich moves on to make the point that many mobile user interfaces that have gone before, like Symbian and Android, were too complicated for average users.

This may be news to some of the tech-frenzied readers who go ballistic at us in the comments whenever we emphasise interface -- hi guys! luv ya! -- but not everybody wants to feel like they're doing a maths exam every time they make a phone call, look up a film time or download an app. Interface is king.

Sure, we tech-savvy early adopters like a challenge, but mobile phones are no longer the domain of nerds like us who want a gadget to be complicated, so we can feel like we've mastered it. Mobile phones belong to our mums and dads now, our nieces and nephews, our ditzy co-workers who don't even read XKCD. The chumps.

He also goes on to point out what I've been saying for a long time - that is, the iPhone user interface is getting old and tired. A grid of application icons - that's all it is. Meanwhile Symbian and Android have all sorts of useful widgets, the latter more than the former, but are complicated to get to grips with. Inbetween we find Windows Phone 7 with its live tiles ...

Windows Phone strikes the perfect middle ground between the two. The slick, instantly recognisable and totally intuitive live tile interface is playful without being toylike, knocking Apple's once-revolutionary front end into a cocked hat. And on the other hand, widgets and dynamic live tiles give you the flexibility that marks Android.

You can read the whole piece here.