If you're building for all platforms with no indication that your product is of high value, then this might be even beneficial for developer focus on finding product market fit.
Maybe if they reach 10%+ someone will take the trouble of hacking Android into one of their phones.
The problem is that the OS and hardware really go hand in hand. Installing a completely different OS than the one the hardware was designed for often results in a disappointing device. The N950 running Meego for example is still to this day what I would consider the pinnacle of hardware and software engineering when it comes to smartphones. It looks gorgeous, it feels amazing - no other smartphone I've ever used (and I've used many) comes close.
But install Android on it and it suddenly looks and feels like an unsightly brick. The way android looks like, the UI gestures, the way Android is meant to be used in general is different than Meego and it doesn't fit the hardware at all. It's loads of subtle and seemingly small details but the end result is a very unpleasant device.
Just as a comparison, only Apple managed to sustain ~5% market share on the PC market since MS has dominated it. Entering the mobile market is very similar in difficulty to entering the desktop segment with a new OS.
Apple, Samsung and LG are not doing this.
Windows Phone owes the vast majority of its success to Nokia anyway, because most of the early adopters bought Nokia phones because of the hardware and despite Windows Phone, which is why Nokia has like 90 percent market share of the WP market.
If this wasn't the case, the market would've been more decentralized. You could also test the theory another way - if Nokia would've quit WP for Android this year (if Microsoft wouldn't have bought them), Windows Phone would be dead almost immediately.
Plus, Nokia's phones actually looked nicer with Meego:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/nokia-...
http://cdn.theunlockr.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Android...
I really don't want to come across as a shill (I've just made two concurrent posts about this), but have you heard of Sailfish/Jolla? They're basically ex-Nokia engineers trying to reboot Meego/N9-era Nokia smartphones.
http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Opening_and_... http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Backstack_an...
[1] http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI...
Merging icons and widgets? Brillian, Google should've though of that. Simple, modern, flat styling? Fantastic. Monochrome 2-color icons? Do not want.
This is also good because Nokia is like 80+% of Windows Phone sales, so that means Windows Phone is creeping upward against Android (for better or worse)
http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/31/strategy-analytics-q3-201...
Anyway, I love my Lumia 928. After having 3 iPhones it's the best phone I've ever had.
Except we're talking about the US where Apple didn't lose marketshare.
Since Nokia's successful models are at a price point where Apple doesn't even have an offering Occam's razor suggests they are taking share from Android.
For 80$, no contract this is great deal going on now.
