Comment by vanviegen

Early android did have sandboxing and a permission system. It's just that you had to accept all permissions on app install. (Which is still a lot better than common practice on the contemporary desktop.)

That didn't make the system less open though. The user gets to make an informed (or not) choice.

What was different is that the Play store back then was basically a free-for-all. There was no meaningful approval process. This did contribute to making the system as a whole more open, but at a cost...