I'm a little disappointed that Fred has fallen into the seductive trap of comparing Android and iOS to Windows and Mac. It's superficially attractive but doesn't stand up to any serious scrutiny.

What's winning here isn't openness (which has many, many definitions), it's commoditization. Android is successfully commoditizing the smartphone market, which is good for Google, good for consumers and bad for the carriers and handset makers (who are willing accessories in their race to the bottom).

A better analogy (IMHO) is, in gaming terms, PCs (Android) vs consoles (iOS).

PCs are more powerful than consoles (except for a short window when the console is released). This of course depends on what (if any) graphics card the PC has. PCs (despite Windows) are essentially "open". You can install what applications, devices, drivers, etc you want. Technically you can replace Windows with something like Linux too (but that won't do your gaming any favours).

Consoles are essentially a closed system. The device is protected from modification (to some degree). Publishing games requires meeting hefty requirements laid out by the console maker (and license fees).

The benefit of the console model is clear: consumer don't need to mess around with them. They just turn them on and they work. Gaming publishers can develop to a much wider audience with a fixed hardware platform.

We've now reached a point where 3D graphics have basically gotten as good as they need to for the vast majority of consumers. It's a bit like the move from video to DVD was huge (in terms of quality). DVD to Blu-ray? The majority of consumers still don't care (and probably never will).

Better graphics engine in games basically translates into higher art/content costs and that is a case of diminishing returns.

So consoles are basically killing off PC gaming (except for a few niche genres)--and here's the key point--because the hardware is as good as it needs to be.

None of this was true in the Windows vs Mac era. The rapid development of Windows-based PCs, both in terms of raw power and price-performance, is really what killed the Mac.

That power is now of far diminished importance. In the mobile market, in some ways, more power is less desirable because it comes at a cost in battery life, size and weight (none of which were ever relevant to the Windows vs Mac debate, other than for laptops). Now shrinking transistors does lead to increases in power but that is fairly predictable and uniform across all platforms.

Consumers, give enough power, start valuing other things like the UI, the design of the device, the ecosystem, the brand and so on (basically this is a "need" to "want" transition).

In all of these areas Apple has a huge lead.

But Apple only produces one handset at the very top of the market. Android wins total market share in smartphones for two primary reasons:

1. Most people just use their phones as phones (diminishing the value of the ecosystem); and

2. Android competes in a lot of markets the iPhone doesn't.

So I concede that Android seems likely to dominate the phone market at this point. I just don't think it's terribly relevant to the future of mobile computing.

The future (IMHO) is about tablets, a market where Apple has an enormous lead and huge advantages, one where the halo effect is likely to benefit everything else they produce.