> The massive market share is because of cheap phones.

The cheap phones are because Google allows 3rd-party OEMs to install Android on their own devices, even though that carries an extra risk of having an outdated phone, or a 3rd-party back door, or just a crappy experience that degrades the overall Android brand. It's the exact same thing we're talking about -- Apple doesn't do that because they think giving random device makers that much control is insecure and hurts their brand. It doesn't mean that Apple's approach is wrong. But I'm glad that both exist.

> And when Apple did it, it did it more securely.

This isn't an iOS vs Android contest. It doesn't matter who has the better implementation.

Apple started from a perspective of "You don't need multitasking." Consumers widely said, "Yeah, we do. Those phones have it and we want it." Apple said, "fine, but we'll do it our way." Everybody won, because some people went out and did the experimental hacky thing, and Apple looked at them and said, "you know what, it has issues, but I guess that is worth supporting."

> And where is this “massive innovation” that is leading to profit either by app makers making apps that can only be made on Android or by device makers?

Innovation != profit. Otherwise, Open Source communities would be a lot richer. My metrics for user success are not primarily based on corporate profit margins, but the short answer to why people aren't getting rich on Android is because the app market as a whole on both iOS and Android is a race to the bottom. It just so happens that Android's bottom is slightly lower than Apple's is.

There certainly are apps on Android that can't exist on iOS though, if that's what you're getting at. Off the top of my head, the iOS equivalents of Tasker are way underpowered next to what's being offered on Android. 3rd-party non-Gecko web browsers still aren't supported on iOS, which actually does matter because the iOS browser engine is lagging on multiple web standards. Look backwards a little ways, and you have the swipe keyboard style, which started out as a 3rd-party app on Android and (I suspect) was a big part of Apple deciding to back-down on their 3rd-party keyboard restrictions. Go back even farther and you had 3rd-party tethering apps. On the OEM side, there are people who still swear by the Note series, and Apple seems pretty adamant that they're not interested in pursuing phone styluses. They're probably not gonna ever break on that, but I am about 65-75% sure that within 5-7 years Apple's gonna break down on touchscreen laptops; I feel like the convertible market is going to eventually be too big for them to ignore.

One big thing for me personally is that I use a file manager on Android to handle syncing -- I basically treat my phone like a USB drive. A really nice part of that is it's all web-based. I don't have anything installed on my computer, I can boot up essentially a local server from my phone and drag videos/music into or out of any app's data storage from any computer with a web browser. Even from other phones :)

Again, this doesn't mean that Android is better than iOS. It means iOS and Android serve different niches. If you like the iOS niche, that's great. Some people genuinely like the Android niche; they're not just buying Google phones because they're poor. The high-end Pixel phones sell.