I think the answer is pretty simple and has nothing to do with a philosophy about simplicity and quality. The reason is money. People tend to forget how Gruber

I think the answer is pretty simple and has nothing to do with a philosophy about simplicity and quality. The reason is money. People tend to forget how Gruber makes his money and how that affects his blog. It requires companies with products that can profit after spending over $8000 on one ad to an audience of less than a million. Apple is a very popular brand, but the people who seek out daily information about Apple are the rich. Some may dispute that, saying that Apple makes products comparable to similar products from other companies/it is worth the money it saves in the long term. That is rich people thinking. Look around any major city and compare where you see the iPhone ads and where you see the Boost Mobile/Cricket ads. That should give you some idea of the differences in audiences. Android has a philosophy, but the reason there isn't an Android Gruber is there isn't room in Android news/punditry for a writer exclusively for the rich. You aren't part of a special group for owning an Android. They give away Androids with haircuts and don't sell 'em with fancy ads about how it was designed by pretty people in California. The app market for Android trends towards free with ads without the Instapaper/Loren Brichter niche of paid apps. A guy like Gruber is useless in the Android world for multiple reasons. There is very little mystique about Android, so the Kremlinology Gruber provides is pointless. You don't need an unaffiliated spokesperson when Google+ is essentially a public discussion forum for those working on Android. It is hard to get excited about an insider when anyone who cares can know nearly everything of interest. The philosophy of Android does have a whiff of open source about it so by nature means the culture will be diffused and fractured into separate camps that won't appoint a figurehead like Gruber. Most importantly, Gruber's audience is too small for the smurfberry/ad funded apps and not large enough to justify dropping four figures for the low conversion Android would have on paid apps.