Open sometimes wins
On whether "open" ever really meant much in mobile, and what Android's openness has actually won

The answer is, for better or worse, Clintonian: It depends what you mean by "open", "always", and "wins".
Let's start with "Open". Is Android open? Was it ever? Android is technically open-sourced, which enabled Google to claim of Android in "The Meaning of Open":
Others can take our open source code, modify it, close it up and ship it as their own. Android is a classic example of this, as several OEMs have already taken the code and done great things with it. There are risks to this approach, however, as the software can fragment into different branches which don't work well together...This is something we are working hard to avoid with Android."
As for the end user experience, Android is still more "open" in some ways. iOS doesn't allow for launcher apps or enable apps to send/receive SMS on your behalf, as Android does. Android should also be given some credit for bringing features like Intents, smart notifications, and third party keyboards to market before Apple, but to what end? In other words, in what sense has or hasn't this byzantine notion of openness actually won?
A few more passages from Google's "Meaning of Open" give some sense of what it means for Open to "win":
In an open system, a competitive advantage doesn't derive from locking in customers, but rather from understanding the fast-moving system better than anyone else and using that knowledge to generate better, more innovative products. The successful company in an open system is both a fast innovator and a thought leader; the brand value of thought leadership attracts customers and then fast innovation keeps them.
The emphasis on "fast" is mine. It's meant to underscore a sense in which Google's "open" approach to Android has actually won: growth rate. Google's awe-inspiring market share would have been impossible had they not opened the floodgates to OEM's, at least in the early going, in a way Apple never would.
Growth rate and market share are only a few dimensions of victory, though, and in some ways they're rather uninteresting. Microsoft Windows has long dominated desktop OS market share without producing much in the way of innovation. "The Meaning of Open" on innovation:
Another way to look at the difference between open and closed systems is that open systems allow innovation at all levels — from the operating system to the application layer — not just at the top.
Even devoted iOS users like myself expected to see more "innovative" apps on Android. Look back at John Gruber's "Where are the killer Android apps?" from late 2010:
Which are the apps, from developers other than Google, that I should feel like I’m missing out on because I don’t have an Android device? Where are the killer apps for Android?
Given the explosive sales growth of Android — that it’s now the best-selling smartphone OS in the U.S., and selling very well worldwide — isn’t this unusual? Or at least unexpected?
- System utilities like "Android cleaners" and "Speed boosters"
- Security & Anti-Virus services
- Apps & Games that launched on iOS first
- App Launchers
There are no free, self-driving phones with ad-subsidized service. There are no hippie P2P data-sharing schemes for unlocked Androids. There are few mobile hardware hobbyists or tinkerers...[Android] certainly isn’t making the sort of impact — on the world and on Google itself — that it perhaps could or should.
Looking back at the past seven years of iOS and Android, it's tempting to imagine alternate histories that might have resulted in a different outcome than what we have today. In other words, what if some factors that mitigated Android's success hadn't occurred?
- What if Android had gotten out to an early lead on the iPhone, and instead it were Apple spending the first few years playing catch up?
- What if Android has been driven by a truly open consortium, rather than Google? Better yet, what if it weren't controlled by anyone and hadn't followed the App Store model?
- What if Google had had an iTunes that already held millions of credit cards by the time Android launched, rather than needing to collect them on-the-go with Android?
- What if there had been some fluky, massive security issue with iOS in the early days that swayed everyone's perception?
That last bullet is perhaps unfair, as security is one of Apple's justifications for having a relatively "closed" system over the years. But in a way that's also the point: the claim was that Open always wins.
"Open always wins" makes for a good catchphrase but a poor law. You could try to bake in a few exceptions like:
- Open always wins in mobile except when the competitor is exceptional at manufacturing, management, engineering, and design
- Open always wins in mobile except when 'open' mostly boils down to being able to reskin your phone
- Open always wins in desktop OS's except when your name rhymes with Shlinux
But those are a mouthful. If you're merely trying to capture the truth in he fewest words, you're probably best off with "Open Sometimes Wins".
The problem is: Who's gonna click on a link to a blog post with a title as tepid as "Open Sometimes Wins"?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯