[mkl]

Not in my experience. I have always been able to access the file system, sideload apps, install other app stores (yes they're a bit limited), run any browser, run command line programs, etc. It's also easy to run Android in emulators and on a variety of hardware. iOS is absurdly locked down in comparison.

Your claim that versions of Android are completely proprietary is obviously false: every version of Android uses a lot of other open source software, and runs on Linux, which is GPL.

[JoeyBananas]

If we are talking about any type of android phone outside of very specific/obscure models, this is misleading. Although android is technically free software, real world phones are compromised by both carriers (e.g. Verizon) and manufacturers (e.g. Samsung).

You may be able to sideload apps, but you're still limited to the few APIs that they allow you to use, while these corporations still have the keys to the root account. Even if you own the phone, you can't get around these controls.

even if the low-level bare-bones distribution of android is free software, the vendors almost always tack on garbage that makes it completely compromised. It's like "I may be in a prison but the fair-trade handcuffs are made by a B corporation so I'm happy"