The carrier doesn't lock down iOS. Every iOS user worldwide can update to iOS the day it is released if the phone is compatible.

This is a function of market share and customer loyalty, and thus Apples ability to tell carriers to f-off. iPhones will sell regardless whether the given carrier does sell them or not.

On the other hand, iOS updates do cause problems and then it's the carriers, who scramble to modify their networks to make iPhones work (remember when Brits didn't have mobile data for a few days after an update?). They would not do it for Xiaomi or Sony.

Apple rested control from AT&T and the few mobile carriers around the world that were selling the iPhone during the first year with less than 10 million devices sold. There was no reason that Google couldn't do the same. You even had to wait for Nexus updates back in the day that were sold by Verizon.

Apple already had loyal customers, who were ready to buy the devices without regard to mobile operators. iPhone was just continuation of computers and especially iPods.

Also true for Windows 10 Mobile. (My phone gets an update today, why doesn't yours?) Android is the only smart phone platform that carriers still have a say in.

That was not true for Windows 10 Mobile. Some devices never received the update.

What was indeed the insult on top of the injury - the WM devices were all Qualcomm Snapdragon devices. They were never so varied as Android devices are.

It was not true for Windows Phone 8, and therefore some carriers interfered with the deployment of the upgrade. It is true for Windows 10 Mobile, however. If a device is supported for Windows 10 Mobile, all updates are carrier independent. The "Upgrade Advisor" app Microsoft released to the Windows Store effectively allowed you to circumvent the carrier and upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile, replacing the Windows Update source for your phone with Microsoft's.

Ah, so that is how it went. I knew some devices WP devices (didn't note version) never received the updates.

However, the part about them all being the same Snapdragon devices with slightly different cases, cameras, etc. is still true. Microsoft doesn't have to solve how to make a release for Exynos, Kirin or Tegra devices.

The other neat thing they did which included WP8 was that their Developer Preview would do the same thing with the Windows Insider app. If you signed up for test builds, you'd get updates regardless of model or carrier, to the latest build offered. (And a lot of never officially supported phones can use Windows 10 via this method.)

That being said, this was only kindasorta a good thing, because it didn't always have working third party drivers attached. My old Samsung ATIV SE was super glitchy, particularly in the touchscreen department, when I upgraded my phone absent Samsung's blessing.

But it was one more place Microsoft kinda demonstrated even their mobile OS builds were more or less hardware independent, which is a huge contrast from Android.