[gkoberger]

With the iPhone, everything (device, software, services) are from Apple.

With Android, Google provides parts that different device manufacturers can use to augment their device. Manufacturers can use their own hardware and add whatever software they want to Android.

Not a great analogy, though -- especially since my initial impression was that it only worked on Android while Square was for iOS.

A better analogy would probably be "Stripe's API + Square's Hardware".