so, the OS is open source, but the apps are not, therefore it's basically apple?
no.
no, you still have quite a bit of freedom on android, you can install apps you want irregardless of what anyone else says, you can (gasp) write your own apps, you can load and unload media, it's almost as if the phone was not treating you like some sort of criminal. now Google has fallen quite a way from where it was under Eric Schmidt in the 'not evil' department, and I honestly AM disappointed in them over the very subject being discussed hert, but saying Google's bad while Apple is still around and swimming Scrooge McDuck style in oceans of money is like talking smack about Indonesia for not being a bastion of human rights when a chasm has oped up releasing the hoards of Mordor upon the lands of man. all this says to me is more effort should be made to make a truly open source android distribution, but I think things are not in too bad a shape on the software front, the biggest problem I have is in the hardware front, getting custom software onto a device is far far too difficult and intentionally encumbered. This is not Google's fault, unless you want to say they have not been draconian enough in there licensing to require open hardware..
