Both companies are in the business of monetizing apps in an app market. That is what they are about- money through apps.

One company (Apple) chooses to restrict the hardware they let their app platform run on so they can have more control over the experience.

Comparing the use of one app platform to use of a competing app platform is a perfectly reasonable comparison.

Apple monetizing apps is ancillary to their monetizing of hardware. The real accomplishment is how Apple has managed to dominate market share while competing against a gamut of OEMs with a free OS and much lower price points. Apple may not be the leader in market share going into a refresh of iPads, but that's a temporary problem and not a reflection of the trend.

So? If Apple's goal is to increase total number of devices running iOS, then they have a good model to follow (Android). If it's to eventually end up in second place again in yet another market they should have owned, then they can feel free to keep on keeping on. There's nothing but their business model keeping them from doing it.

Apple's goal is to make money and the last time they licensed out their OS it didn't turn out very well for them.

But from a developer's perspective, what matters is where the customers are. I still think in the near term, paid apps are a bigger market on the ipad but if your application is free, then android may be a better bet for initial deployment.