Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White in 2003. As reported by PC World, the Android OS was originally designed to improve the operating systems of digital cameras. Two years later, in 2005, Android Inc was acquired by Google, and by November 2007, the beta version of Android 1.0 was released to a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance, which included phone makers like HTC and Motorola, chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm and top US mobile carriers including Sprint and T-mobile.
What’s a mobile OS?
A mobile OS is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, and other mobile devices. Google’s Android is the leading mobile operating system platform on the planet. The OS is used on more than 74.3% of global smartphones, from the world’s biggest phone makers like Samsung and Huawei, and Xiaomi to emerging cell phone manufacturing companies in developing countries. Here is the Android journey from the creation of the company to its latest release.
The Android History
In September 2008, the very first Android smartphone was announced, the T-Mobile G1, also known as the HTC Dream. It went on sale in the U.S. in October of that year. The phone has a pop-up 3.2-inch touchscreen combined with a QWERTY physical keyboard. Since 2008, Android has seen numerous updates which have incrementally improved the operating system, adding new features and fixing bugs in previous releases. Each major release is named in alphabetical order after a dessert, with the first few Android versions being called “Cupcake”—Android 1.5, “Donut”—Android 1.6, “Eclair”—Android 2.0, and “Froyo”—Android 2.2, in that order, and so on.
Fast-track
In 2010, Google launched its own brand of Android phones, the Nexus One, and by September of the same year, Android 2.3, codenamed Gingerbread, was unveiled. With Android 3.0-Honeycomb comes support for devices with larger displays than the regular smartphone screen size, and the release was well adapted for tablets.
The year 2011 was unique in that it saw the first release of two different versions of the mobile OS, the Android 3.0-Honeycomb and Android 4.0-Ice Cream Sandwich. Multi-user support started coming into play on Android 4.1 to 4.3, Jelly Bean, and started on tablets only. KitKat is the name given to Android 4.4, but the major shakeup in the OS was to come with Android 5.0-Lollipop, with a revamped navigation bar, rich notifications for the lock-screen and much more in late 2014.
Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Android 7.0 Nougat, Android 8.0 Oreo, and Android 9.0 Pie are all versions released between 2015 and 2018. The following year, Google launched the next version of Android, which it called Android Q. This release comes with a new logo, and the company announced their decision to drop the codename for the next Android versions.
Android Q is also known as Android 10. Some of the features new to this version include support for foldable phones with flexible displays. It also supports new gesture-navigation controls, a more efficient sharing menu, and more control over app-based permissions. The Android source code is released in an open-source format to help advance open standards across mobile devices.
Now, there are even better improved Android versions like Android 11 and 12 already released and used on many smartphones; with Android 13 still in is beta testing phase. If you own a Pixel smartphone, you can now install Android 13. There are also rumors that Android 14 is currently in the works. How cool is that?
Competition
Since then, software and application developers have been able to use Android technology to develop mobile apps, which are sold through app stores such as the Google Play Store, Huawei’s App Gallery, and Samsung’s Galaxy Store. And because it is developed as a Google product, Android users are given the opportunity to link their mobile devices to other Google products, such as Drive, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and others.
As more manufacturers and developers who formerly used old mobile operating systems such as Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, Symbian, and Palm OS adopt Android OS, the global battle of mobile operating systems, at present, stands between two major contenders—Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. With feature-rich content, ease of customization, and a user-friendly nature, Android OS is expected to remain the top global mobile operating system for many years to come.