[freedomben]

Hypothetically, if Pixel phones became the go-to phone on Android, would G be less or more likely to keep it open? I have a bad feeling that the former is more accurate. The fragmentation somewhat forces the openness, or at least a baseline of openness. If pixels went to 98% market share, a rug pull seems easy and desirable for the management classes.

I'll admit that my cynicism is in no small part to having seen Android team members at G carrying around iPhones. It kills me to think that the bad parts of Apple are so interwoven into Android through cultural assimilation.

[nslsm]

> It kills me to think that the bad parts of Apple are so interwoven into Android through cultural assimilation.

It’s more like Android is worse so they don’t want to use it. Dogfooding is good, of course, but if they don’t force them to do it, they will naturally choose the best phone. Which is not an Android.

[bayindirh]

The sad thing is, I started with Android believing it more than Apple's ecosystem, and after my first Android phone, I quickly jumped ship to iPhone.

My parents use Android devices and I manage them. With every iteration, Apple went to the way of PalmOS' refined flows as much as possible, and Android became what Windows CE aspired to be. A complex multi-layer wafer you can't understand which layer comes from where, and it's all different and non-standard between vendors.

Not the least, Android is mobile land of mini tools you have to install to be able to have a power-user friendly platform. Reminds me my old Windows days where I had to install utilities half day to be able to make the installation usable the way I want.