Here's the reality of the Android situation now: if you buy an Android phone, it will most likely be locked down by your carrier, possibly also with some features disabled. Or, to use Tim Bray's term, the reality is that most Android phones that get bought are a "curated experience".
In some places, some carriers will sell unlocked phones, but for a great many people, if you want an open Android phone, you will be required to buy one from a carrier and jailbreak it, which is likely a violation of your subscriber agreement. If you don't jailbreak it, you may not get future Android updates. If you buy an Android phone and don't jailbreak it, you might spend the entire life of your phone using the Android version that shipped on it. Your vendor could even charge you a ridiculous monthly fee for the upgrade, something that at least Verizon has considered doing. Even if your carrier does provide updates for free and regularly, there will be a delay as the vendor and provider add all their customizations and restrictions on top of the official Android release.
For the vast majority of people who will buy Android phones, "open" is an illusion because now that Google has abandoned their direct sales model, Android firmly puts the final decision making power for the overall experience of the phone back into the hands of the traditional carrier/vendor relationship that ruled the space before the iPhone came out. Apple, unlike other phone vendors, is capable of going toe-to-toe with the carriers and is willing to do so to fight for a better user experience. That's why we don't have AT&T branding all over our iPhones. That's why we don't have the mandatory 15-second spiel before voicemail that Verizon users have to suffer through. Apple is at least an equal partner with the carriers who sell their phones. Most of the other phone vendors, to put it bluntly, are the carriers' bitches.
Does Android have some nice features that the iPhone doesn't? Absolutely. Is Android improving? No doubt about it and on a regular basis to boot. But, by putting the real power back in the hand of the carriers and their vendor partners, the user experience is never going to be as important in the decision making process as it is for the iPhone. Even if the Android team manages to make the overall experience better than the iPhone (which I consider unlikely, but possible), the carriers will almost certainly screw it up with their ham-handed customizations and restrictions.
If you're going to have a curated experience, isn't it better to at least have one where the curator is making their decisions primarily around the quality of your experience?
Unless Google resumes direct sales or puts licensing limitations on the carriers to prevent them from locking down Android phones, "open" will be just another empty marketing slogan.
but iSearch sounds cool too 
