If developer friendliness or freedom is the primary advantage of android, then someone needs to prove it by developing and marketing a useful and exciting app that can't exist on other mobile platforms due to their developer restrictions. That someone has to be Google, because nobody else is going to take the risk of putting in the time and effort for a platform with such a small user base.
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Yeah, and according to population estimates here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population those 12 states contain just under 40% of the U.S. population.
If developer friendliness or freedom is the primary advantage of android, then someone needs to prove it by developing and marketing a useful and exciting app that can't exist on other mobile platforms due to their developer restrictions. That someone has to be Google, because nobody else is going to take the risk of putting in the time and effort for a platform with such a small user base.