The Pandora is living proof that the reason for running Android instead of
GNU is not because of power. The Pandora community is quite familiar with the
fact that Android is bloated, and while a version of GNU/Linux has been
running on this device from day one, Android seemed for the longest time to
be flat-out impossible to run decently on it until one of the device's best
coders came along and used some crazy hacking to get it to work.
My guess is there are only three reasons Android is used:
- It's touchscreen-centric, and that allows so-called "smart" phones running
it to not have a keyboard.
- Many users act like mindless consumers with their phones and tablets.
Android makes consumption easy.
- Google is a powerful corporation and used its influence to push Android.
Disclaimer: I don't routinely use Android and I'm not very familiar with its
history, so what I think about it may be off.
