If Google restricted Android from the beginning, it won't even reach 10% market share.
Manufacturers would not adapt a platform that would not allow them to customize and differentiate from their competitors.
What would have happened is we'd get different OS for each manufacturer. That's a lot more painful than what we have now since it's different codebase/API.
I'll take a fragmented Android than a fragmented mobile OS ecosystem any day.
Gotta call bullshit on this one. I don't think other manufacturers have the skill to produce anything as good as android. It may have taken a lot longer but it would have made it to the same ubiquitous market position.
Samsung, Sony, etc won't be able to make a decent OS but they'd still make an OS that they have some control over.
Why the hell would phone manufacturers use an OS that they can't customize and will make their phone look like every other phone out there?
Look back more than a decade ago on feature phones. Phone manufacturers didn't use a standard OS. Some of them created an OS built on Java ME but you still need to code for a specific manufacturer for your app to work.
Because they would fall even more behind Apple. If you had to choose between Jelly Bean or whatever crap that the other manufacturers would develop, which would you choose?
Manufacturers would not adapt a platform that would not allow them to customize and differentiate from their competitors.
What would have happened is we'd get different OS for each manufacturer. That's a lot more painful than what we have now since it's different codebase/API.
I'll take a fragmented Android than a fragmented mobile OS ecosystem any day.