As a big dmr fan, I'm happy his death was noticed in at least some small part by the non-geek media. I didn't love this obit though, mostly because (while Goog

As a big dmr fan, I'm happy his death was noticed in at least some small part by the non-geek media. I didn't love this obit though, mostly because (while Google is far from perfect) I think the swipe that equates them with Apple in terms of mobile device control weakens the piece. Contrary to what the article says, vendors are free to make handsets that run Android without any Google approval, they just don't get all the userland Google apps stuff. Also, Google is hardly in the same league of gatekeeping that Apple is when it comes to their app store, both because they lean towards easy approval of anything not harmful, and because in the standard OS distribution you're free to install your own APKs, other competing app stores (eg. Amazon), etc. Equating that situation to Apple's App Store where that's all you get unless you're going to jailbreak the phone is so much of a simplification of the truth that it is basically a lie.