It was tough sledding at first, with just T-Mobile and HTC, both second-tier players, being first to adopt Android. Android's SDK had been released well before this first deal. Android could have turned out to be an interesting but minor embedded OS with a less well run ecosystem of system integrators than Windows CE.

Android was in fact an alternative to iPhone. Google was more amenable to carrier and OEM mods to Android and third-party app stores. But carriers still were hoping the traditional OEM and app store walled gardens would hold, and Apple could be confined to high-end customers.

App store revenue, at that time, was still small for both the carriers' walled garden and for Apple. It was more a matter of control.