Speaking of Orwellian, they even photograph and log photos, IPS, surfing history of our homes and businesses.
In fact, you have the source code to the OS - you can change the kernel, write and distribute applications and extensions as you desire. No restrictions from Google or the carriers. Android's kernel is freely downloadable, as are the development tools. You don't have to buy anything or pay anyone to write and distribute programs - it's the ultimate in open platforms.
Yet somehow this is being spun as "Google is Evil", or as we see right above (any coincidence it's post 13?) "Google is Fascist". Open and extensible and control in the user's hand is wrong, closed and capriciously restricted and power only for the carrier or manufacturer is right!
Freedom and choice used to be values of America, and foundations of the tech world. Closed, proprietary, heavily controlled/restricted systems were bad; open and flexible and user-configurable systems were good. I guess we've reached Orwellian time (those "1984" commercials of decades ago notwithstanding) when open and free and power-in-the-user's-hands systems are no fascist, hurtful, and bad...
“Freedom and choice used to be values of America”
I admit it. Oracle Android is an excellent smartphone operating system. I’m sure Larry Ellison is happy Google chose to distribute it freely... without the proper license agreement. $10 per phone and a revenue share percentage for all mobile advertising will certainly help the Oracle bottom line. :-)
Speaking of Orwellian, they even photograph and log photos, IPS, surfing history of our homes and businesses.
Modern Android phones are coming out locked just like the iPhone is. Remember, Google has shown it can and will revoke apps from your phone. So far it has done that only for fraudulent apps. So far.
No need to worry about having your warranty revoked because you want to open your phone's OS so you can use it.
See above about locked phones. If you change your phone to an unsupported configuration, you don't deserve warranty support. Producers carefully calculate warranties according to a specified set of operating criteria, and to ask them to support other criteria is unfair. I wouldn't expect Ford to honor the warranty on a custom stroked, bored and blown Mustang engine either.
No threat (since removed) of being sued because you dared unlock your phone so you could DO what YOU wanted to do.
No, they just threaten to sue all the sources of the complete Android OS that you can download from. Instead, you can legally get a substandard Android, stripped of most of the standard apps that it's known for. Oh yes, not all of Android is free, just the basic core system. All those cool apps that come with it are Google proprietary, the custom carrier user interfaces are carrier proprietary.
In fact, you have the source code to the OS - you can change the kernel, write and distribute applications and extensions as you desire.
Quite true, but that's a geek thing. It doesn't apply to the vast majority of buyers.
Just a suggestion, but you can download Apple's developer kit for iPhone/iPad for free, then you can create applications of your very own and can then install them on your very own iPhone, you just can't install them on my iPhone without Apples blessing.
You can be free at last.
That is absolutely true, except now, with the sophisticated hackers in play, your freedom is limited whether you want to admit or not. Personally I am satisfied with Apple's attempt to keep their platforms as free of malware/spyware/viri, as possible.
I have never had an Apple product down because someone else broke it.