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Comment by msy | Hacker News Reader

So given the relaxing of the iPhone development guidelines and the increasingly locked down nature of Android phones and impending fragmentation of the app store as every big player tries to grab a slice of the pie how far are we from the point where where the iPhone is the more open platform?

Google made a deal with the devil and now the carriers are going to laugh all the way to the bank on the back of Google's baby.

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Just to fully grasp the incredibly stretch you're attempting here, what you're saying is that if you combine the worst restriction of all possible implementations of Android together, apply some hyperbole worst-case scenarios about offshoot stores, you can contrive a platform that is "less open" than the iPhone.

Only even then it still isn't less open.

Is the G2 less open than the iPhone? Not even remotely.

No, what I am doing is merely looking at recent data points and suggesting where the trend is going and the motivations of the players involved.

Is the G2 less open than the iPhone? I'm having trouble finding much difference, both are locked to a single version of a single OS controlled by a single third party, the only difference now is app provision. How long until a provider provides their own app store and only their own app store? Months, weeks? Verizon is already working on it. Go on Bing it on your new Droid, once you finish using the undeletable Blockbuster app.

I agree that we are far from the point when we can say Android is less open than the iPhone. But at the same time I wouldn't be surprised if 'features' like that would drag some developers from Android to iPhone.

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