Android existed before Google acquired it. So there’s an interesting wrinkle there.
But, PalmOS existed before Android and iOS. And Blackberry. Sailfish may have also, I just don’t recall.
Android started out as a framework for blackberry. So probably we’d all be using blackberries.
I think both Apple and fictitious closed Android would be way more interchangeable and data from within would be more portable. Developers would get more of a cut. The saving grace for Google in the real world is that they can do Apple shenanigans while pointing at the open-source availability of Android and not get dumped in hotter antitrust water. If we only had two OSs and both were closed especially regulators in Europe would hit both of them much harder. And like tougher environmental restrictions on cars became the de facto US standard for everyone, the forced equal playing field (the EU guys LOVE an equal playing field) would over time make shit better for all users everywhere.
If there was no Android I think we would have a long list of failed attempts to build one that all fail because every company wanted to build their own walled gardens, and didn’t get enough traction. iOS probably would have succeeded thanks to Apple marketing budgets and their somewhat cultish follower base. But I suspect it would have followed more the initial Steve Jobs idea of doing most stuff in browser; the app revolution wouldn’t have happened. So there would be a big iOS share and then the lower 30% or so would be fractured into other walled gardens for poor people. One result of that would be an earlier agreement on a RCS-like texting solution and not just in the States but everywhere. Because more players would have a stake in seamless communication because stuff like WhatsApp (a reaction to high texting rates, mostly in Europe) and blue/green bubblr iMessage did not happen.
Windows Phone may have been a lot more successful and we’d have much better UI than we do now.
Android was initially developed by some other company, that Google acquired when it decided it wanted to do smartphones. The alternate universe that I see is they pick a different company instead, and things play out about like before. Maemo (Nokia product) unfortunately died before its time, but maybe it could have been where Android is now. PalmOS and maybe others also might have been viable. Dunno about the Blackberry OS. Windows Mobile (spawn of Windows CE, I think) always stunk.
