Re: Yet Again Fail
You really don't get it do you? Why are you comparing PCs to mobile phones?A smartphone IS a PC. It's a different form factor, but it's still a computing device with a general purpose CPU, RAM, storage, and I/O devices.
Android is built for the hardware it needs to run on. Windows you download device drivers. They are two very different ways of doing things. I would opt for the Android approach any day, as on Nexus and Pixel is works very well indeed.....
In general, you're correct. The advantage of the Android model is performance, which is important within the constraints of lower-power systems like smartphones. The advantage of the Windows model is flexibility, which is important when software is intended to run on a broad range of devices.
However, this distinction is completely irrelevant to the definition of "userbase". If I use a product of yours, I am a member of your userbase. Users of any device with an Android OS are members of Google's userbase, just as users of any device with a Windows OS are members of Microsoft's.
I think you're trying to say that Google's responsibility ends at distributing the new code to HW manufacturers, but Google themselves are saying that that doesn't cut it, because users are lacking version updates and, more importantly, critical security updates, due to manufacturers' unwillingness or inability to release updates in a timely manner or for all active devices. This is where Treble could help Android by adding a more complete HAL, allowing Google to push security, performance and feature updates without having to wait for HW manufacturers to update, recompile, and validate their code.