[Someone1234]

I'm an Android user. None of your points are incorrect, but they also all apply to Android:

- Gmail receives preferential treatment

- Google cannot be removed as a search engine (inc. Google Now)

- Android can be restricted from tethering (and operators do do that).

- Google dropped CalDAV support.

None of which are "breaking" issues on Android. In fact I won't leave Android just for Google Maps (w/Waze integration), Google Now, the number of apps on the play store, and future things like Google Car (so I can drive my car's nav system with my phone).

[bad_user]

- I'm using FastMail, works just as well

- on Android you can have providers, I'm using this for CalDAV, which works well: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.calda...

- you can replace the search interface, I'm using Firefox Search or DuckDuckGo interchangeably with Google's Search depending on my mood. If you have them installed, it makes you first pick the default when doing the search gesture. Google Now is not customizable, but then again it's just an app.

[magicalist]

> Google cannot be removed as a search engine (inc. Google Now)

The swipe up gesture for search/google now is easily replaced (e.g. just install Firefox and you get asked via intent if you want to use Firefox search instead). The search bar and the swipe from the left gesture can't be removed from the Google Now launcher as far as I know, but it's trivial to replace the launcher itself (just install one and the next time you hit 'home' it'll ask you which launcher you want to use).

[liotier]

Google's is not the only Android distribution. Try Cyanogenmod - I have been running it for years and I therefore have Android without a single byte of Google's binaries on it.

[Grazester]

Cyanogemod is an inferior implementation of Android(pure Android as on the Nexus devices). It is very unstable and I am not the only one that has stability issues. It was across the board, not limited to a single device.