Android was a pure empire defense reaction by Google. Quality was not the priority but market capture through low prices was the game. Just like what they did w

Android was a pure empire defense reaction by Google. Quality was not the priority but market capture through low prices was the game. Just like what they did with free email/free video. Youtube did not end up producing better Quality than Netflix/HBO/Disney. And gmail totally lost opportunities to become social media or whatsapp. Quality always drops if the main goal is market capture ie get as many cows into the corral focusing only on total milk flow, and afterwards worry about the quality of milk of individual cows. Apple had already captured and locked in those who could afford higher prices (people who have 1000 bucks to throw away don't care about price). Add in the Telco's subsidizing iphone to play their own empire defense games, and Apple Quality got into the hands of enough people. Microsoft still has had better software people and stacks than Apple, it just lost the consumer market (windows phone was any day better than android too bad they gave up on it - 2008 gfc influenced lot of decisions). For large businesses what Microsoft cloud/stacks offers is a thousand times better than what everyone else does.