[myko]

What? It's perfectly feasible to have an Android phone and never sign up for a Google account. There are third party app stores (Amazon, GetJar, etc). If you don't feel like using a third party app store you can just install apks directly from the web.

[eatfish]

Your device becomes unsellable without the Google lock in. Lots of companies tried it early on in the Android ecosystem. Even those who hit great price points, provided a vanilla Android experience and provided their own app stores failed miserably.

It's just naiive to think you can be successful without Google.

[cageface]

Supporting Google access and requiring it are two very different things. Of course a phone that wasn't capable of integrating with gmail etc would never sell but that doesn't mean that I can't personally opt out if I buy that phone.