Indeed. Which is why I say this represents another component of a strategy away from open systems, and towards the sort of proprietary walled-garden experience

Indeed. Which is why I say this represents another component of a strategy away from open systems, and towards the sort of proprietary walled-garden experience offered by Apple. Not only is this a betrayal of many early Google evangelists - myself included - it's a fairly cynical exercise to build such a system on the Linux kernel.