Google is keeping some of Android's best features behind a Pixel paywall

Google is a strange company. Sometimes it seems like a testing center for machine learning algorithms. It is also in a strange place when it comes to the smartphone industry. While Google knows its future is almost entirely dependent on the smartphone, it has to mix being the caretaker of Android with selling phones itself and building services that work across platforms. This is why Google gets more regulatory attention than Apple -- an even bigger, wealthier, and more heavy-handed company.