The Small Wave.

The way developers see it, Apple might be dominating the game today but in the long-term, it will be Google and its open platform approach that will take the top honors.

Right. Just like Linux with its "open platform approach" took "top honors" on the desktop. Which reminds me, is this The Year Of Linux again?

Anyway, you can develop an app taking advantage of unique hardware and software with off the charts customer satisfaction scores, or you can write lowest-common-denominator code in Java or Flash on wildly fluctuating devices. The choice is yours.

I've said before that Google can have all the philosophical/political developers they want. I still believe that. I've seen no correlation between a developer's politics and ability to code.

Consumers just want a really great app. Whether the developer can also sell it on a dozen other devices doesn't mean diddly to a typical end user (you know, the ones developers should be trying to sell to). Further, whether an app is "open" is irrelevant in a tech world where the meaning of that word has been twisted by every corporate entity to mean whatever it needs to in order to fit their marketing plan.

The "open" advocates are misguided believing they don't want to buy or code for an Apple device because the six-inch high “wall” around Apple's “garden” has only allowed over 39,000 developers and 225,000 apps—way more than competitors’ alleged “open” systems have—but it’s the theory, not the practice, that matters to such people.