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by ravichhabra 5085 days ago
I think the key here is that phones were for a long time "embeded devices". It is protected platform that can not be 'tinkered' with. This was how iPhone 1.0 was. That is point one to ponder.

Point two: Original intent of sales. iPhones and Android and other phones are sold as a smart phone. As long as it is not sold as a computer, the vendors are free to dictate what is possible and what is not.

NB: While Android does has third party browsers, it should be noted that the default Browser.app can not be recreated using the Android SDK as it relies on private APIs.