The most interesting pieces to me are the ones that work to bypass the walled gardens: the in-app third-party app stores with OTA installs, and the in-app wallets.
The former knocks apple/google out of the gatekeeper role, and the latter presumably lets somebody else take a percentage fee off the top.
In the US, I understand ios and android try their hardest to not allow apps that do these tricks into their app store. Not at all familiar with China... are there different rules for being listed there, different players, or just an unregulated wild-west where everyone has jailbroken functionality?
I suspect, but am not totally sure, that vendors jailbreak the phones before you buy them. At least, when I bought a nexus S in China in 2011 (I think), the bootloader was already unlocked and it had had a ton of chinese crapware preinstalled onto it.
Android is open, they just download the code. iOS devices are sold locked and jail broken by those interested using the normal means...it doesn't happen a lot more often here than in the states.
The former knocks apple/google out of the gatekeeper role, and the latter presumably lets somebody else take a percentage fee off the top.
In the US, I understand ios and android try their hardest to not allow apps that do these tricks into their app store. Not at all familiar with China... are there different rules for being listed there, different players, or just an unregulated wild-west where everyone has jailbroken functionality?