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Android prevents Google from being shut out of the mobile future. It ensures Google's survival. That is enough profit for Google from that investment.

symbolset, on 14 April 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

Also, non of these stories have mentioned if Google is making a profit or loss on Android. I personally like Android much more than Apples IOS so I hope they are making some profit.

Additionally, I have recently been purchasing more apps. In the past, I only used the free version, but now, if I like the app, I will pony up the few dollars for the "pro" or paid version. I think it's worth it to keep the programmers in the Android market.

As long as google isnt losing money/making a loss on android ( which i belive it isnt) why bother?

Whether or not Google cares shouldn't matter. Android users are the one who should care.

The reason Android users should care is because there is a chance in the future mobile devices will run full operating systems. Microsoft could easily work to make Windows work with Windows Mobile Devices and Apple has OSX they can get to work with their mobile devices. However Google doesn't have that luxury. Chrome OS is a complete bust and can't compete with OSX or Windows. But if Android were more profitable, Google might feel it's worth investing money into making an OS that could take on Windows and OSX if mobile devices do one day go with full operating systems.

I think most people are rather short sighted about the impact of Android. As an embedded engineer what I'm most astonished by is the rapid pace embedded systems have started being integrated into even more everyday objects by having a relatively powerful open source operating system with decent ease of developer support spawning Android in everything from alarm clocks to watches, toilets and GPS systems, home automation, etc. Even if Google were to go under, Android has spread to virtually every new digital device out there.

I think most people are rather short sighted about the impact of Android. As an embedded engineer what I'm most astonished by is the rapid pace embedded systems have started being integrated into even more everyday objects by having a relatively powerful open source operating system with decent ease of developer support spawning Android in everything from alarm clocks to watches, toilets and GPS systems, home automation, etc. Even if Google were to go under, Android has spread to virtually every new digital device out there.

rhobots, on 14 April 2012 - 11:55 PM, said:

Well we are talking about mobile devices such as Phones and Tablets. This is an area, Google must keep pace with if it wants to survive in mobile devices. If Apple and Windows both go to a full operating system, there is no way Android survives. No one is gonna choose paying $200 for an Android Tablet when they could prolly get a Windows Tablet with a full OS for nearly the same cost. Also if Google starts losing the mobile war it could either lead to Google stopping support for Android and just leave it in the hands of the Android community (which would be less innovation as the Android community hardly has the money to invest in innovation like Google has) or worse is Google completely gets rid of Android. Google is known to scrap projects completely once they are no longer profitable. So the mobile war is very important to follow if your an Android fan.

The reason they don't care about "android" revenue is that android is a Trojan horse, just like Google search. Note the comment: "Page predicted that such integration of services through Android would 'lead to better economics for us'..."

That integration means that everything you store on your android device can be accessed and used by Google for selling ads.

I learned this the hard way when in an attempt to avoid having my personal phone directory migrated into the cloud, I deleted my old gmail account and created a new one; which I had yet to use; and turned off all synchronization.

To my chagrin, I was invited to connect to some friends of mine already on Google+. Given that I had yet to do anything with my new account, let alone add any "friends", I clicked on invite more of your friends to join Google+. The list coincided and clearly came from my android phone's contact list.

How was it that Google got access to my phones contact list; without asking me first?

I quickly deleted my "new" gmail account and now my smart phone complains that my login to my gmail account failed. Good!

And things will get worse with Ice Cream Sandwich. ICS will have a new API to all your phones functions available to all apps.

If you thought what Murdoch did was bad, ICS will make phone cracking even easier. All those pics of your weenie will soon be in the Google cloud whether you want them or not; same with all your text messages.

Time to take a few steps backwards to a separate dumb phone device.

@matt,

Even if android isnt profitable,google could very likely develop it into a full operating system for ''strategic reasons''