Google has finalized its $1.1bn acquisition of HTC’s mobile teams, and though the Taiwanese firm will continue to make its own handsets and its Vive virtual reality gear, the deal is still firmly focused on Google’s counter-intuitive ambition to be a mobile device giant. Android may be the most successful mobile software platform ever, but Google has not been satisfied with that, or even with the huge amount of mobile searches, adverts and transactions the operating system drives its way. It has struggled with the open source nature of Android, which means device makers can design user experiences which sideline the actual Google services, or blemish the operating system’s reputation with poor performance. The Open Handset Alliance, which sets rules…