> And as Microsoft has discovered, the market leader tends to get a disproportionate share of attention from malware authors. They seriously can't be playing t

> And as Microsoft has discovered, the market leader tends to get a disproportionate share of attention from malware authors. They seriously can't be playing that card when android was neither the first smart phone, nor the most populous until quite recently. Malware has been present from early on the platform, and worse has been distributed via the google application market. It's clear that Google's approach to openness brings the unfortunate consequences of non-curated content, this is identical to regular personal computers and puts the onus of security on the user. The advent of the cheapest per feature smart phone however means that this is also the platform that will most likely be picked up in bulk by the population(already has), a population who isn't savvy and probably needs their hand held when it comes to common sense computing. Part of the fault also lies with google as some apps are gaining root access to avoid remote-revocation, however even before rooting the phone they were allowed unfettered access to areas that should be highly secured such as SMS/Call features and access to personal information such as the address book and browsing history. When Google launched the android market, they took away the unpopular choices made by Apple: things like signed-code and more rigorous app approval criteria, but they didn't reformulate the system or add meaningful changes to protect their own users from the predictable malware consequences. (i.e the differences between consoles versus open platforms) However, just like the open personal computing platform, google will be able to incrementally improve the software and possibly stamp out the vast majority of weak points. The downside is for the consumers who are stuck with premium-sms bills & possible identity theft, while developers get burned because regular consumers(i.e the vast majority) become scared to experiment with google marketplace.