Platform updates and the rate of innovation

Ben Evans takes a look at iOS 7 and the differences between Apple and Google’s abilities to drive innovation on their platforms. Google seems to definitely be moving away from any OS level updates and delivering nearly everything through Google Play Services. This will be interesting to see going forward: will Android essentially be locked at 4.x with minimal future OS upgrades? It’s quite possible at this point. In fact, that is arguably the best outcome for Google because it leaves them in full control of what they value most without having too much responsibility on the OS side for things they don’t care about.