[wool_gather]

Counterpoint (and I say this as someone who currently makes a living via Apple's platform): Apple reserves a fair bit of system integration/functionality to their first-party apps. For example, on iOS no navigation app other than Apple Maps can actively navigate when the device is locked.

I'm not familiar enough with Android to know if Google does this as well.

[binomialxenon]

Android has plenty of its own problems, but not so much in this category. Android users can set default browser, email, SMS app, etc., where iOS does not allow this. Any navigation app can work while the device is locked, it's enabled by a permission called "Draw over other apps", IIRC.

In my opinion, the problem with Android is not that you can't add to its functionality, which you can, but that you can't effectively limit Google's privacy-invasive functionality (much worse than iOS's) unless you can unlock the bootloader.

[jonhohle]

But they don’t have a monopoly in any of the spaces you’ve mentioned (or any space at all).