Your points are valid but this clusterfuck doesn't excuse Android: both Microsoft and Apple were able to deliver working ARM-based systems not subject to these

Your points are valid but this clusterfuck doesn't excuse Android: both Microsoft and Apple were able to deliver working ARM-based systems not subject to these issues: Microsoft by mandating UEFI, Apple by reasons unknown to me, but presumably helped by the fact that they're a vertical. As a few people have noted, it's not "Intel x86/64" that's standard, they just happen to be a dominant player right now. The original architecture is the "IBM PC", and its clones that are "IBM PC-compatible", that all descend from the same BIOS lineage. IBM became dismayed how other companies were profiting from its architecture, and released the incompatible PS/2 architecture instead [1], which fizzled, and its good parts -- like 3.5" floppies, VGA, and PS/2 connectors -- were adopted by the clones. In the 1990s, Intel and Microsoft rose to prominence and began to exert more control and dictate the direction of the architecture with specs like 'PC System Design Guide' [2], and they and other vendors produced several improvements (ACPI, USB, PCIe, AHCI, SATA, etc.) which were adopted by broad community consensus, pushing the architecture forward. ARM is different, because they make their money licensing their cores, so historically they had no interest in cultivating a general-purpose, "vendor consensus" platform. And Android's owner, Google, just wanted to get its services like Google Search, Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Now into as many people's hands and pockets as they could -- and they succeeded, despite the platform's haphazard nature. Samsung knows that Google and the handset manufacturers are allies of convenience. Samsung is hard at work trying to cook up an OS and ecosystem for its hardware that's not contingent on Google's continual involvement, even allying with Microsoft to bring .NET to Tizen after its previous attempts saw no developer uptake. Meanwhile, Google knows that continued press coverage of Android's security situation is hurting the platform. It's trying to re-frame the partnership it has with hardware makers, to design more hardware in-house, and to lean on its partners only for contract manufacturing -- a shift from the Nexus days, incompletely executed with the first Pixel phone, but likely more to follow. This will enable Google to control more of the software on the phone. [1] http://www.mcamafia.de/pdf/pdfref.htm http://www.mcamafia.de/pdf/pdfref.htm [2] http://tech-insider.org/windows/research/1997/0711.html http://tech-insider.org/windows/research/1997/0711.html