It has created a nice software ecosystem by being a good target for developers because of its (massive) user base. It has a massive user base because Google works hard to make it a good, user-friendly consumer product and they work hard to get manufacturers to get (many models of) handsets to market. It helps that the average person needs and can afford a phone, most of which are now smartphones. Linux never made the effort required to be a serious consumer grade product (well, Ubuntu gave it a good go).

This is not so much a technical issue. Sure, the technicals need to be there, but when the average consumer goes looking for a computer, they don't start with the question, "How stable are the apis for this OS?" They do not know what an api is. And developers will not develop just because of stable apis. The Windows phone has not been a resounding success, but if ever there were a product that I, as a developer, would target due to expectations of stable apis, that would be it.

Appification is why my dad uses the iPhone. He can do cool things by hitting squares with his finger, and then get on with the rest of his day which will likely include a lot of mentally draining tasks. It's the same thing that gravitated folks to Apple's first graphical operating system. The user friendliness. The approachability. Not the cutting edge object oriented software behind it. But the mouse and a picture of a garbage can.

In that context, it's not foreign at all. I'm mean, the first time I saw the command line, that was foreign. But now it's not. But hitting a picture of an envelope to send mail, not so foreign.