>And that doesn't look like a very clever idea now, does it. Come to think of it,
So you want apps to be able to mess around in the /system partition and make your device unbootable?
>Google must have looked at Linux, OS X and Windows (to name but a few) with
> their auto updating mechanisms and decided that pushable updates were a bad idea.
Google has moved more of the userland into the playstore so that it can be updated. OTA updates are supported for the OS itself. If vendors don't want to ship OTA updates then I'm not sure what exactly Google is meant to do other than take back control of the OS builds vendors ship (via their Nexus etc devices). When they do that they are accused of being control freaks. They really can't win.
>Or you could do it properly, which is what Microsoft have tried (and mostly succeeded) to do.
I'm not sure Windows update is the pinnacle of OS updating schemes. If you said they should have looked at apt or yum you might have a point.
>Which is, define a hardware architecture to which manufacturers must comply,
>and then MS can push out updates as and when necessary.
Never going to be possible for phones unless you only ship a very restricted set of devices. It's working for Apple but not for MS. Apple use the same scheme as Android devices should for OS fixes btw.