As a guy who runs an embedded development company, I have to say, Android is pretty costly to do compared to the iPhone OS for any given amount of functionality

As a guy who runs an embedded development company, I have to say, Android is pretty costly to do compared to the iPhone OS for any given amount of functionality. Like usual, the Java everywhere approach of it makes it pretty painful when you have a config file error, as a full 1/3 of those are not really validated with something that will tell you that you made an error. The business case of "No reviewers" makes it a more predictable platform by leaps and bounds over the iphone though. Having done multiple month projects which apple than sat on for 7 weeks without approving or rejecting after months of being "suggested" to add expensive features (such as in app purchases), I can completely see it being better for companies doing "questionable" things (for apple's overly controlling view of questionable), but otherwise, it's a PAINFUL market, as even if you're the only person in a space, there is likely a guy writing an open source version of your app which he'll then release for free. What I'd REALLY like to see is someone make a app layer that runs on top of the formal API what was about 2x more consistent and 4x less "javay" in both graphical layout and the amount of hand edited XML files you have to do. I'm thinking about trying http://phonegap.com/ http://phonegap.com/ and the http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ to see if they're better alternatives than pure java for customers looking for android solutions. Then again, android is more powerful than the sandboxed version of the Apple API that they let you use, but that power comes at a cost of a great increase in complexity.