The history of Android - The evolution of the biggest mobile OS in the world - Android
Sometimes it feels like we’ve been running Google’s mobile OS on our Android devices forever. However, it’s actually been just over a decade since the first official Android phone hit store shelves. The key decision in Android history was Google’s commitment to make Android an open-source operating system. That allowed it to become highly popular with third-party phone makers. Just a few years after the launch of Android 1.0, smartphones powered by the new OS were everywhere.
12 years later, we are celebrating the launch of Android 11. The OS has become the most popular mobile operating system in the world, defeating its many competitors like Symbian, BlackBerry, Palm OS, webOS, and Windows Phone. Apple’s iOS is the only platform still standing as a serious competitor to Android, and that situation doesn’t look like it will change anytime soon.
Let’s take a look at the history of Android OS.
Read more: Every Android Easter egg and how to find it
The history of Android begins in October 2003 — well before the term smartphone was widely used and several years before Apple announced its first iPhone and iOS. Android Inc was founded in Palo Alto, California. Its four founders were Rich Miner, Nick Sears, Chris White, and Andy Rubin. At the time, Rubin was quoted as saying that Android Inc was going to develop “smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner’s location and preferences.”
Rubin revealed in a 2013 speech in Tokyo that Android OS was originally meant to improve the operating systems of digital cameras. But even back then, the market for stand-alone digital cameras was declining. Just a few months later, Android Inc decided to shift gears towards using the OS inside mobile phones.
Google bought Android in 2005 and everything changed.
In 2005, the next big chapter in Android’s history began when the original company was acquired by Google. Rubin and other founding members stayed on to continue developing the OS under their new owners. The decision was made to use Linux as the basis for the Android OS. That meant that the operating system could be offered to third-party mobile phone manufacturers for free. Google and the Android team felt the company could make money offering other services that used the OS, including apps.
Rubin stayed at Google as head of the Android team until 2013, when the Mountain View company announced he would be leaving the division. In late 2014, Rubin left Google altogether and launched a startup business incubator before eventually returning to the smartphone business with the ill-fated Essential in 2017.
The now-familiar logo for the Android OS, which looks like a combination of a robot and a green bug, was created by Irina Blok while she was employed by Google. Blok has said that the only directive she was given by the design team at Google was to make the logo look like a robot. Blok also stated that the final design for the Android mascot was inspired in part by looking at the familiar restroom logos representing “Men” and “Women.”
One thing that Blok and Google decided was to make the Android robot itself an open-source project. Nearly every other huge company would protect such a logo or mascot from being redesigned and used by others. However, the Android robot has now been modified and used by tons of people, all because Google allows such changes under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.
The Android mascot — also known as just “Andy” — was overhauled alongside much of Android’s branding in 2019. Andy may have lost his body, but the new look is now much more ubiquitous across all of Android’s branding.
In 2007, Apple launched the first iPhone and ushered in a new era in mobile computing. At the time, Google was still working on Android in secret, but in November of that year, the company slowly started to reveal its plans to compete with Apple and other mobile platforms. In a major development, Google led the formation of what was called the Open Handset Alliance. It included phone makers like HTC and Motorola, chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, and carriers including T-Mobile.
Then Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted as saying, “Today’s announcement is more ambitious than any single ‘Google Phone’ that the press has been speculating about over the past few weeks. Our vision is that the powerful platform we’re unveiling will power thousands of different phone models.”
The public beta of Android version 1.0 launched for developers on Nov. 5, 2007.
In September 2008, the very first Android smartphone was announced: the T-Mobile G1, also known as the HTC Dream in other parts of the world. It went on sale in the US in October of that year. The phone, with its pop-up 3.2-inch touchscreen combined with a QWERTY physical keyboard wasn’t exactly a design marvel. Indeed, the T-Mobile G1 got pretty bad reviews from technology media outlets. The device didn’t even have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack which, unlike today, was pretty much a de facto phone feature among Android’s competition.
However, the Android 1.0 OS inside already had the trademarks of Google’s plan for the OS. It integrated a number of the company’s other products and services, including Google Maps, YouTube, and an HTML browser (pre-Chrome) that, of course, used Google’s search services. It also had the first version of Android Market, the app store that Google proudly stated would have, “dozens of unique, first-of-a-kind Android applications.” All of these features sound pretty primitive now, but this was just the beginning of Android’s rise in the mobile device market.
Keith Bellvay
The first official public codename for Android didn’t appear until version 1.5 Cupcake was released in April 2009. The credit for naming Android versions after sweet candy and desserts has traditionally gone to its project manager at Google, Ryan Gibson. However, his specific reasons for using such a naming convention remain unknown.
Cupcake added quite a few new features and improvements compared to the first two public versions. This includes things that we now take for granted, such as the ability to upload videos to YouTube, a way for phones’ displays to automatically rotate, and support for third-party keyboards.
Some of the phones that were released with Cupcake installed out of the box included the first Samsung Galaxy phone, along with the HTC Hero.
Google quickly launched Android 1.6 Donut in September 2009. The new OS now offered support for carriers using CDMA-based networks. This allowed Android phones to be sold by all carriers around the world.
Other features included the introduction of the Quick Search Box, and quick toggling between the Camera, Camcorder, and Gallery to streamline the media-capture experience. Donut also introduced the Power Control widget for managing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc.
One of the phones that were sold with Donut installed was the ill-fated Dell Streak. It had a huge (at the time) 5-inch screen, and was described on our own site as a “smartphone/tablet.” These days, a 5-inch display is considered relatively small for a smartphone.
In October 2009 — about a year after the launch of Android 1.0 — Google released version 2.0 of the OS, with the official codename Eclair. This version was the first to add text-to-speech support, and also introduced live wallpapers, multiple account support, and Google Maps navigation, among many other new features and improvements.
The Motorola Droid was the first phone that sported Android 2.0 out of the box. The Droid was also the first Android-based phone that was sold by Verizon Wireless. In a funny bit of trivia, while Google was safe to use Android as the name for its OS, the term “Droid” was trademarked by Lucasfilm, in reference to the robots of the Star Wars franchise. Motorola had to get permission and pay some money to Lucasfilm to use the name for its phone. Motorola continued using the Droid brand for many of its phones as late as 2016.
Android 2.2 Froyo (short for “frozen yogurt”) was officially launched in May 2010. Smartphones sporting Froyo could take advantage of several new features, including Wi-Fi mobile hotspot functions, push notifications via the Android Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) service, flash support, and more.
The first smartphone that carried Google’s Nexus branding — the Nexus One — launched with Android 2.1 out of the box earlier in 2010, but quickly received an over-the-air update to Froyo later that year. This marked a new approach for Google, with the company working closer than ever before with hardware manufacturer HTC to showcase pure Android.
Android 2.3 Gingerbread was launched in September 2010. The OS received a user interface refresh under Gingerbread. It added support for using near field communication (NFC) functions for smartphones with the required hardware. The first phone to sport both Gingerbread and NFC hardware was the Nexus S, which was co-developed by Google and Samsung. Gingerbread also laid the groundwork for the selfie by adding support for multiple cameras and video chat support within Google Talk.
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