Look, fellas, I keep seeing these kinds of blog posts and while I am waiting patiently for some fresh insights, I keep seeing the same discussion recycled. So t

Look, fellas, I keep seeing these kinds of blog posts and while I am waiting patiently for some fresh insights, I keep seeing the same discussion recycled. So to spare everyone the angst, here's the bottom line: Apple takes the attitude that if you give users what they just discovered they wanted, they will give Apple money. Apple considers this more important than its relationships with the carriers, which is why AT&T got an exclusive: None of the other carriers would play ball with a phone that the carriers can't control to the point of making their users miserable. I am not making a value judgment that this is good or great or a revolution, just stating what I believe to be Apple's business strategy. Google works the other way, it makes an OS that in theory is just as good as iOS or even better, but in practice Google's business strategy is about getting as many copies of Android out on as many handsets as possible. Take your pick, this is to get as many search clicks and/or other data aggregations into Google's hands or to suck the oxygen out of the market from their arch-rival Microsoft, or possibly both. To that end, they give the carriers what the carriers want, and the carriers want to make their captive market miserable. This plays itself out in a myriad of different ways, and it always seems to come down to the same thing: Android is more open in theory, but the gap between theory and practice is smaller in theory than it is in practice, and the cause of the gap is the carriers and Googles perfectly sane business strategy of appeasing them. I am not saying Apple's strategy is better or worse than Google's. It is possible that each strategy is a local optimum, and the poor companies between Apple and Google--like Microsoft, RIM, and so on--are between a rock and a hard place. But I do think each strategy is valid given its company's goals, and therefore I do not expect to see anything change unless there is a seismic shift in the industry. Until then, Apple will make a lot of money off a smaller number of handsets, and Android will dominate the numbers but its users will be hostage to the carriers.