Am I the only one who thinks Gruber is greatly overrated? OK, we get it, Apple's on top and anyone who thinks different (no pun intended) is an asshole/douchbag. And again with how Eric Schmidt "wasn't exactly being honest" etc.
My own TLDR: Google screwed Apple with Android, and for that they should burn in hell for all eternity.
He might be overrated and he might be an ass sometimes (5by5 saga still bugs me), but his style leaves others in the dust way too often. He credits his sources, and links to sites in such as way that people actually go there. No crappy link hidden in the footnotes. In addition, he acknowledges when he is wrong, both in an update, and back where he made a claim on his site. There is way too little effort given to standards such as these generally, and Gruber sets a high standard.
Did you read the whole post, or just the end? The TL;DR on this post is that without Android, iOS would be in about the same place they are now. Some other platform would have taken Android's place. The biggest difference would have been that Apple and Google would still be friends, and Google's services would still be integrated with iOS.