[kilian]

Yes, they're hard problems, but most of what we do is a cop-out, or as the OP says "whatever shoddy pile of hacks we’ve cooked up by then".

For example, I have to search for some obscure instructions to get my two Google calenders syncing with my iPhone that involves my either adding an "email" account, or manually typing in some ridiculously long "secret" url. Why can't I just open google.com/calendar on my phone and have it say "Hey there, want to add me to your phone's calendar? Click here!"?