Although the Android platform isn't as open as many would like it to be, there's no denying that it is far more open than Apple's iPhone platform is. Among the many benefits of that openness is that the code underlying the platform is available for scrutiny by users and developers the world over. I don't care how many people Apple's team has; there's no way their number could compete with that. The result? More "" studying the code means problems are caught more quickly.

In this era of transparency and participation, I believe that openness and user control are what's needed in the rapidly expanding mobile world. No single company, however capable it might be, can protect users from everything. Nor, indeed, should any single company be entrusted with such a responsibility. The far better approach is to give users a way to play a role in monitoring security themselves, and that's just what Android does.