Android leftovers

The problem was Google's attitude. They love brilliant people, and despise people who are average.
Anyone who has gone through the hiring process with them, is struck by this realization.

While that attitude is unfortunately true for many of us, they carried it over into their Android effort which was supposed to be a community open source thing.

The community served more than as guinea pigs for their nascent alpha stage Android mobile platform. They wrote innovative applications to compete in the Android contest - 1786 applications! During this process they contributed good ideas which Google used, enhancement suggestions that were implemented, tested and reported bugs, helped each other in the forums and some even wrote tools to enhance the platform.

In return, Google loved on the 50 winners of the contest (after an unfair and hasty judging process) and spat upon the rest of us, the 1700 entrants and community. Once Google got what it wanted in a final version of Android, we were discarded like leftover food gone stale. As a result, most got disillusioned, felt used, and simply left. Now Android is just another platform. It has none of the magic and romance that Java and Linux had.