Hmm, if the best part of Android is the free wheeling, beloved by geeks and not anyone else store, then I am not sure if Android is the competitor I thought it

Hmm, if the best part of Android is the free wheeling, beloved by geeks and not anyone else store, then I am not sure if Android is the competitor I thought it is. A locked down store is totally what carriers want. They want the revenue stream from selling the apps. That's how the market was before iPhone. So until Google force carriers to have a common store, I see more and more carriers adopt this model.