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With the iPhone, everything (device, software, services) are from Apple.

With Android, Google provides parts that different device manufacturers can use to augment their device. Manufacturers can use their own hardware and add whatever software they want to Android.

Not a great analogy, though -- especially since my initial impression was that it only worked on Android while Square was for iOS.

A better analogy would probably be "Stripe's API + Square's Hardware".

The analogy is fine. If you're a handset manufacturer (samsung, htc, et al) you can white label android (which works kinda like iOS). Just as you can't use iOS, you can't use square in your own app.

I'd guess that they wanted to say "Stripe for Android"; but didnt want to mention Stripe, so ended up suggesting that.

The analogy makes sense if you look at AOL's news sites as cheap content farms.