Apple is on an incredible roll with its mobile products, but Google is piecing together a formidable rival with the Android platform. The difference in approaches comes down to control. Apple, notoriously control freaks, have a relatively closed operating system while there are dozens of permutations of Android. In the history of the Internet, open has nearly always trumped closed. Will that be the case here? It looks that way, judging by a report released by Nielsen on smartphone use. But it depends on how you work the numbers. Android’s overall share of the market is higher than iPhone and BlackBerry, but Android’s chunk is split among several handset makers. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is betting consumers have little interest in that type of fragmentation.
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