I think it was unrealistic to expect to have any "significant" market share compared to Android and iOS, even 1% is a huge number. What I would have done is to

I think it was unrealistic to expect to have any "significant" market share compared to Android and iOS, even 1% is a huge number. What I would have done is to focus on apps first, staying on Android. Make worthy competitors for the built-in apps, like GMail. Then, make it easier to write apps. Mobile app development is a baroque hell. Most apps nowadays are just lists, or maps, with a JSON backend. I don't want to deal with Adaptors and Fragments and Providers and what not for just that, when the app could be done 90% declaratively, and styled with a bit of CSS. Why did they ditch all the work put into Maemo to make Gtk touch friendly years ago? Merge that stuff, or use modern Gtk, and let me write apps in Python+Gtk. Then, once you have kick-ass apps, make a great rooting tool. Then, make a great android distribution (don't call it a ROM!). A vanilla android + your apps + a tool to extract drivers from the backup partition, so that it works on dozens of devices. Then add debian in a sub-tree. Then add apps to tie the linux world and the android world together (e.g. a Android terminal, maybe written in your "awesome" framework). I think a piecemeal solution is the only realistic way to build an android competitor.