Relevance
If I thought it was Relevant to mention the people, I would have.
Steve Wozniak co founded Apple. His inventions and machines are credited with contributing significantly to the personal computer revolution of the 1970s. Indeed, he created the Apple I and Apple II. The latter gained so much popularity it eventually became one of the best selling personal computers of the 1970s and early 1980s.
But, and here's the important point, he's nothing to do with the daily running of Apple now and has contributed virtually nothing since the early days. Yet Apple, in it's second phase with Steve Jobs in charge, is redefining mobile phones - totally without Woz playing any part in the lineage that made it possible.
Andy Rubin has also founded a company. But his history is that of a man who's come up with some possibly badly timed and poorly executed ideas, and partnered with the same haphazard wisdom. He also possesses more of an employee mentality, than a visionary to whom money is attracted.
It has to be remembered that Ubuntu [that other example of open source OS 'success'] is the only 'flavour' of the computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution to have broken out of the geek domain into the wider market. And this is as a result of Mark Shuttleworth's patronage. Therefore, Google are to Android as Shuttleworth is to Ubuntu - patrons. This isn't how business works. This isn't how businesses make money.
When I speak of lineage, I do so with some degree of authority and experience. The old 'Deep Throat' quote: "Follow the money" embodies wisdom that seems to have escaped you, yet it's true of everything from enterprise to terrorism.
What we have with the iPhone is a genuinely useful, definable lineage that can be accurately tracked in retrospect, as well as predicted to a certain extent in terms of future performance. But don't worry, you're not alone in not recognising that. Sir Alan Sugar made the same mistake of underestimating the iPod back in 2005, as did Steve Ballmer with the iPhone, and the whole of Wall Street did with Apple.
However, we are now in the middle of Apple's iPhone play. [Not literally, but figuratively]. And this play is very very well planned, conceived and directed. So much so in fact that I can see elements of Chinese military strategy at the heart of it. [But that's a discussion for another day].
In contrast, the Android project is like a flotilla of hopeful, yet dubiously piloted little boats, setting out on what they all seem to believe is the same journey, but by the best will in the world, can't possibly be. Not only are there too many interests that need to be served, there are far too many opportunities for the 'fleet' to loose contact with each other and their market, make no money, and eventually break up.
You say: "It's very likely to happen." re numbers of Android developers and apps etc. Sure, while the water looks good, phone makers have little to lose in pushing handset to run Android, and several will, inevitably, immediately diluting any potential gain for individual manufacturers. But as soon as interest wanes, users will find lines being dropped players will drop out of the game, and support will disappear.
So, even though the Android may well be, or is possibly, EVENTUALLY capable of being, as good a mobile operating system as Apple's iPhone OS is NOW, [albeit one developed by an un-monetised network], without the benefit of what Apple brings to the party, in terms of a single identifiable and desirable hardware solution, it's not a credible alternative. It certainly isn't ever going to be a game changer.
And don't forget, we've all been buying phones from these other players for years, and found them all wanting in a vast variety of ways, no matter how varied the choice of form factors and functionality.
Finally, psychologically this choice actually proves to be an enormous negative, as is always the case. More is not less. Fewer choices actually make choosing easier. So why are people betting on the opposite to what experience tells us is true?
Your knowledge of mobile history is a bit lacking.
Good ideas come from people, not companies. Both devices have long personal histories, even though the current iPhone and Android devices only started in mid 2005.
Android was begat by Andy Rubin, who worked at Apple in 1989, then was a major player in
Magic Cap, WebTV, and Danger. So there's long experience behind both iPhone and Android teams.
It's very likely to happen.
As for quoting raw numbers, they're not always useful. There's been over three quarters of a million downloads of the Android SDK. Doesn't mean that many are working on it actively. Similarly, many of those so-called "iPhone developers" are regular users who bought memberships to get beta access.
Don't get me started on the "85,000" apps. Tens of thousands are poor duplicates. That goes for all platforms:
Sometimes I wonder how many really unique apps there can be, not just variations. Someone should do a study on the topic. Would be interesting. Must be in the low thousands, if any that many.