I am not arguing that Android in-particular is superior, just that the ability to choose the vendor of your device is a significant freedom that can be lost.
I appreciate that Android always has Google as a vendor somewhere in the chain, and I'd like to see variety there too. It's possible to use App based ecosystems and respect everyone's rights at the same time.
I favour an independent app store where the majority of the computing and bandwidth infrastructure is taken up by the developer. This reduces the cost of the app store so they can operate without mandatory contributions and as a result permits unlimited flexibility.
And Google has been engaging in anticompetitive/illegal behaviour (FRAND patents), abusing privacy (Safari DNT) and capitulating over human rights (China). All the while basing their whole business on selling advertising.
For me Google sounds like the worst company to be sharing your children's data with. No ?
Yes, Google are involved in most Android devices. They don't however mandate any dominance over the device. Using an Android device without Google's apps is not only plausible, but common.
Absolute worst case (which is massively unlikely) I'm a few hundred dollars down (which I can afford). Realistically any unpleasant constraints would come in gradually and I'd just buy a non-Apple phone at the point I would have upgraded my iPhone and I'm not even financially down.
How am I constrained in any real, meaningful sense?
That bunch of applications on the Apple Store that gets bigger and bigger? They add up. You'll clench your teeth and try to ignore the constrains.
With Google you go here http://www.dataliberation.org/ and get everything out. Hell, you have the source for android, you can build your own system http://www.idroidproject.org/ and use your apps as well.
But more seriously, your solution works only as long as there is "something else". So you're predicating the whole thing on the fact that there's an external entity out there for you to flee to. The problem is that we're moving headlong into a dystopian future where there simply isn't any ecosystem left where you can go. The least worst option at the moment is Android because it allows side loading and is open source so if Google turns evil enough you can be sure that someone else will come in and fork it to compete with them (you can argue that already happened). You can even create your own builds and deploy them to your phone if necessary. Now I'm not advocating any such extreme tin-foil type things in reality, but I do think it's vitally important we preserve at least the ability or freedom for these options to occur, because they keep all the other players honest.
If I were a kid today the first thing I would do is jailbreak my iPad, a process waaaaay easier than getting on the internet and finding apps for Palm before the age of filesharing.
Of course the difference being that I didn't lose the warranty on my Palm pilot for not using official software, but I would for jailbreaking my iPad.
Playing farmville all day does not a hacker make, but coding your own apps? tweaking the OS? that's a great start, too bad first you have to convince your parents of letting you void the warranty on a $500 device.
Good luck with that.
"“I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,” Negroponte said. “Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera, and they figured out the camera, and had hacked Android.”"