It's not meant to be an excuse, Android has not aged well, and Google has done a poor job putting security at the forefront of their platform. Apple's taken a lot of flack over the years for making developers jump through new hoops all the time and having such heavy restrictions on their platform, but its clear the users have benefitted in other ways.
iOS had it's own issue, where Path uploaded a user's entire contact list without needing to ask permission for it. That was a wakeup call for Apple, and it should have been for Google too.