It seems i'm becoming a Google fanboy.

But is that such a bad thing?

Recently a big divide has come about between the people who use Google's Android devices, and Apple's iWhatever products. It mainly consists of people like me, developer types, who heavily disagree with Apple's policy on openness and people who use the Apple devices who would rather a device 'just work'.

This all stems from reading an article earlier on Apple's 'locked down' system of doing business, wherein once you buy an Apple product, you're locked in. For example you buy a song on iTunes, that song is not yours, Apple still own it and can prevent you from playing that song any time they like, if they close down the iTunes store, you don't get any refunds, and you don't have any rights.

Where as it seems the opposite is true of Google, where everything is open, free, or if not free at least very cheap, even the songs bought off the built in Amazon store are DRM (I like that the blogger spellchecker doesn't even recognize DRM) free and playable on ANY device.

The same with the Android market, the only thing Google ask when you post an app is that it's not pornographic. Counter to this, Apple force developers to not only give 30% of all profits to Apple, but also 30% of any content that is sold or distributed through the app, leaving the BBC no choice but to cull its selection of apps for the iPhone app store.

This brings me neatly on to the app store EULA, which DEMANDS that developers sign an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) meaning that should they speak to anyone outside the developer network of any of the things they happen to be doing Apple will sue them.

Now I will say that the only reason Google has been able to do all of this so openly and free, is because they have very successfully sold Ads on their website, and embedded in others, which I don't agree with, but compared to Apple's methods, a mere drop in the ocean.

I sincerely hope that Google's methods continue, and they keep distributing high quality OSS, and now I hope they don't let me down doing something stupid...

If that happens I'll be getting one of the new Nokia linux phones next time.