Well, the op means that a launcher is all the home/core ui is, and he's pretty much right. There r as many launcher pages as u need, plus a search page, and a line launcher for your dock and another for fast app switching, plus a few controls to the left of that, with notifications that pop up ontop of all that. An app launcher keeps the core ui simple for people who want it that way, and I dont mind it. The added functionality is in the apps themselves, and you can do almost anything with those, with the plethora of api's apple provides. But if apps arnt fast enough for you, the other platforms offer widgets, drop lists for notifications, etc.
Now if the op is asking what iOS comes with stock, then there are the first page of included apps, which are your setting for hardware and how the os behaves, another for Internet, another for phone, etc. So yes it has everything you'd expect from a phone through its included apps (which is actually how most other smart os' do it also) plus the store for more, which provide their own ui to expand functionality. Just no android styled widgets, lists, wp7 hubs, tiles, or webos cards in the core ui
I'm working with a pure iPad here, so I don't know everything about the phone or what else u can get frm jailbreaking