What was the very first Android phone? History of the creation of the Android operating system

In recent years, the mobile market has changed so much that today even a top-end smartphone from five years ago looks ridiculous and ridiculous. The development of mobile operating systems has moved by leaps and bounds, and nothing remains but memories of the once dominant Symbian and Windows Mobile. We will try to understand in this article what has happened over the past five years and why the changes have been so global.

2007: iPhone OS 1.0 and the first announcement of Android

2007 was one of the most important years in the history of the development of pocket computers and smartphones. It was this year, on January 9, that the iPhone was presented at the Macworld Conference & Expo, changing all users’ ideas about smartphones. After the presentation of the “Steve Jobs phone,” all other smartphones instantly became obsolete, so much so that if the iPhone had been released a year later, the situation would not have changed at all.

It was the iPhone that set the style of interaction with a smartphone that we are accustomed to today. No control keys, no stylus and small elements on the screen, no joystick, replaced by a large clear screen, a truly smart operating system, a desktop similar to Mac OS X, a full-fledged web browser and the concept of “multiple taps” to access any function of the device. Released to the market in June, the iPhone became an absolute bestseller for several years to come and brought the Apple company billions in profits.

Interestingly, in technical terms, the iPhone was not a breakthrough at all. Almost all the discoveries attributed to Steve Jobs and Apple existed before, but, as has always happened with Apple, they were the first to think of putting all the best together and implementing it at such a high level. This was largely possible thanks to the use of a full-fledged OS, which was actually a fork of the desktop Mac OS X and, as a result, had the broadest capabilities for creating applications. They could use any of the phone's features in their work, including the 3D accelerator, which made the iPhone OS interface work surprisingly smoothly and quickly.

The first version of iPhone OS did not have any special functionality, but it offered users a fairly complete stack of applications for everyday work, including a smart address book, browser, multimedia player, scheduler, email client, alarm clock and others. For everything else, oddly enough, Steve Jobs suggested using web applications, which already at that time worked perfectly in the mobile version of Safari. Support for third-party applications was not provided as such and appeared only in the second version of the operating system, which was released exactly a year after sales of the first iPhone began.

2007 was also the year of the announcement of Android, which clearly occurred under the pressure of a rapidly gaining popularity of the product from Apple. At that time, Android appeared only in the form of a beta version of the development kit (SDK), equipped with an emulator in which you could play with the OS live.

On November 12, the SDK was posted online, and any user or developer could form their personal impression of the OS and decide for themselves whether it was worth their attention. And the impressions of most people turned out to be very mixed. The suspicious resemblance to the iPhone OS was immediately apparent; Android looked like some kind of ridiculous copy of the operating system for the iPhone, much less spectacular, but actually repeating it. Secondly, Google took a slightly strange but logical path by equipping the OS with the Dalvik virtual machine, which runs its own bytecode format, which was generated from the bytecode of Java applications.

However, the main feature of the OS was its obvious flawed nature, caused by the pursuit of the rapidly gaining popularity of iPhone OS. The first Android didn't even have such simple things as an on-screen keyboard, support for Bluetooth and OpenGL, the virtual machine executed bytecode without using JIT compilation, and the overall impression was that there was no central line in the OS, but there are a lot of interesting ideas casually stacked on top of each other. This feeling, by the way, will persist for a long time, until the release of the fourth version of the OS.

Be that as it may, as a result, Google was still able to lure independent developers to its side by organizing a competition to create unique applications with very tempting prizes in the form of many dollar bills. This trick gave a big win when launching sales of the first Android smartphone next year.

2008: iPhone OS 2.0 and Android 1.0

The year 2008 was marked by two important events at once, one of which was the release of the new iPhone 3G running iPhone OS 2.0. The smartphone itself was not of particular interest and was nothing more than a slightly modified version of the first iPhone, which added support for 3G and A-GPS. But the iPhone OS 2.0 operating system has again become a breakthrough of sorts, bringing long-awaited support for native applications to owners of the old and new versions of the smartphone.

The reasons why this event became so important are simple. Being a full-fledged OS running on standard modern hardware and supporting all its capabilities, iPhone OS gave developers the opportunity to create applications without regard to compatibility, screen size, device limitations or runtime environment (Java ME, for example). This has led to the emergence of a large number of mobile applications of a completely new class, which use position sensors, a compass, a GPS module and the advantages of a large screen in their work. In addition, iPhone OS, in fact, marked the beginning of the emergence of truly high-quality mobile games that boasted good 3D graphics (using the built-in 3D accelerator with full OpenGL support), as well as multi-finger touch control and position sensor control.

The correctly chosen policy of distributing applications only through the official App Store also played a role: each creation uploaded to it was checked by Apple employees for quality and absence of malicious behavior. You could buy and install any software in a few taps on the screen using the official App Store client, find out application ratings and look at screenshots before purchasing. While not the inventor of the online app store as such, Apple actually became the promoter of this idea, completely prohibiting users from installing software from other sources and, in essence, forcing a change in the thinking of users.

It is worth noting that, despite the completeness of the iPhone OS as a serious operating system, at that time it actually did not have multitasking. In order to maintain smooth operation and “responsiveness” of the OS, Apple programmers left the ability to work in the background only to stock applications pre-installed in the OS, while third-party software was killed immediately after switching to another task. And although this approach smacked of DOS, it bore fruit in the early stages of the OS, when the iPhone’s performance was severely limited.

The second important and, probably, even more significant event of 2008 was actually the first birth of the Android operating system, which took place on September 23 with the release of Android SDK 1.0, which included an almost finished, but still flawed operating system.

The first serial smartphone on this OS appeared a month later and was developed by HTC specifically for Google. It received a double name: HTC Dream or T-Mobile G1. Only with the release of this device did the real highlight of Android become apparent as an operating system that turns a smartphone into a kind of terminal for accessing Google services. The fact is that Android not only included many client applications for search engine services (search, mail, calendar, maps, chat and YouTube), but also allowed the user to link with all these services once by entering their email username and password. After that, messages from email and chat, notifications from the calendar began to pour into the smartphone, and all contacts were automatically synchronized with Google. The same login and password were used to access the application store, which already included a lot of software developed within a year since the release of the beta version of the Android SDK.

2009: iPhone OS 3.0 and Android 1.1–2.1

2009 can rightfully be considered the year of the heyday of Android as a mobile OS. Manufacturers of mobile equipment began to take a closer look at Android and announce their first devices based on it, Google continued to hastily refine the OS, patching up numerous gaps in its design and functionality.

On February 9, the search giant released the first update of the operating system under the index 1.1, which did not bring any special innovations and was released to fix bugs and problems found in the API. At the end of April, the company released a full-fledged Android 1.5 update, officially named Cupcake. This version included many important changes, such as an on-screen keyboard, desktop widgets, the ability to shoot videos, support for Bluetooth headsets, automatic screen rotation, and many others.

Six months later, on September 15, Google announced Android 1.6 Donut, which included many improvements, a speech synthesis engine, and also, very importantly, support for higher screen resolutions than 320 by 480 and an integrated function for adjusting applications to different resolutions. The latter made it possible to run applications on different devices without any problems, even if the developer did not provide support for different screen resolutions (roughly speaking, the image was simply scaled).

In just a month, Google releases Android 2.0 Eclair, which can be called the last in the transition to a truly stable and fully functional operating system. Eclair includes many improvements, such as support for multiple Google accounts, Bluetooth 2.1, a new on-screen keyboard, a redesigned interface, as well as many improvements to stock applications, such as SMS, browser and camera, which finally received support for various effects, digital zoom and macro focus.

The year 2009 is also the year the first smartphone models running the new OS were released. The leader in this market is Taiwanese HTC, which released three new smartphone models at once: HTC Magic, the more advanced HTC Hero and the budget HTC Tattoo. Later, Chinese Huawei enters the game with the budget smartphone Pulse and Samsung with the first device of the legendary Galaxy line, as well as the budget Spica. However, the real sensation is made by Motorola, which suddenly emerged from the shadows with its - which later became a cult - top-end smartphone Motorola Droid, equipped with a stunning 3.7-inch screen with a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels, a high-performance OMAP3430 processor, 256 MB of RAM and working running the latest Android 2.0. It was thanks to Android that Motorola was able to break into the seemingly lost smartphone market and subsequently firmly hold its position.

As for the iPhone OS, Apple is sticking to its previous course of gradual annual upgrades. On July 17, Steve Jobs presents the iPhone 3GS to the public, equipped with an improved display, a more powerful Samsung S5PC100 processor operating at 600 MHz (instead of the standard 833), a PowerVR SGX535 3D graphics accelerator, twice the amount of RAM (256 MB instead of 128 MB), digital compass and 3 MP video camera (instead of 2 MP in iPhone 3G). As expected, the third version of the smartphone runs iPhone OS 3.0, which includes more than a hundred innovations, including the copy and paste function, MMS support, Spotlight search throughout the smartphone, as well as remote wipe and smartphone search functions.

2010: Windows Phone 7, Android 2.2–2.3, iOS 4.0

2010 was probably the busiest year in the history of mobile technology. The most significant event was the announcement of the Windows Phone 7 operating system, work on which began in 2008. The OS was presented on February 15 at the Mobile World Congress exhibition and immediately attracted everyone's attention thanks to a completely new, unusual and incredibly impressive Metro interface.

Metro looked stylish, minimalistic, and at the same time brought the experience of communicating with the OS and applications to a completely different level, or more precisely, returned the user to the familiar models of interaction with the environment that we are accustomed to in everyday life. The interface simultaneously combined all the main graphic components of a modern urban city, such as information boards, guidebooks and glossy magazines, making it intuitive and easy to use.

It is interesting that, despite a completely new interface and programming API, which made all applications written for Windows Mobile incompatible with the new OS, inside Windows Phone continued to remain the same Windows CE with an outdated kernel based on Windows 95 technologies. For the development of applications and games, Microsoft proposed using a special version of Silverlight and the XNA framework, also used in the Zune multimedia player and the Xbox 360 console. However, as in the case of iOS, the multitasking of the operating system was curtailed, so the programmer could not count on background execution of the application, but could use the API to perform some types of background tasks, such as fetching mail or updating data from the Web.

On October 11, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced ten devices running Windows Phone 7 from manufacturers such as HTC, Dell, Samsung and LG. The devices were immediately released to the market.

2010 was also the year of another technological triumph for Apple, which presented the world with three significant products at once: the new, truly modernized iPhone 4, the iPad tablet and the iOS 4.0 operating system, which finally introduced multitasking.

The central event in this entire chain, of course, is connected with the iPad - a tablet computer that Steve Jobs spoke about back in 1983, predicting the release of “a powerful computer the size of a book that will take no more than twenty minutes to learn how to use.” From a technical point of view, the revolution did not happen this time either. Essentially, it was just a large iPhone with a 9.7-inch screen, a 1 GHz processor and a special modification of iPhone OS 3.2, which was almost no different from the smartphone version and allowed the use of all the same applications. However, thanks to the quality of workmanship, Apple was once again able to open up a completely new market.

The iPad was introduced in April, but already in June, following its tradition, Apple announced the iPhone 4, the main features of which were a screen with a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels, double the amount of RAM (512 MB) and a 0.3 megapixel front camera for video calls. . Along with the new iPhone, iOS 4.0 was introduced, which became the first OS that was incompatible with some previous versions of the smartphone and was available for a new type of device - the iPad.

The main highlight of iOS 4.0 was more complete, but at the same time inferior, multitasking. From now on, third-party applications could run in the background, but their capabilities were limited to a set of “background APIs,” much in the same way as is implemented in Windows Phone. Applications could play music, locate the device, display notifications, request additional time to complete an unfinished task, but could not “just run” in the background, as happens in desktop operating systems or Android OS.

For the Android ecosystem, 2010 was no less significant. This year was a real boom in the release of Android devices by almost all significant players in the mobile market. Developers began to take a serious look at the OS, so that by the middle of the year 100 thousand applications could already be found in the Android Market, and by the end of the year their number had grown to 400 thousand. In the same year, there were two major OS updates, thanks to which Android could already be called a complete OS.

In May, version Android 2.2 Froyo was introduced, the main feature of which was improved performance due to the inclusion of JIT compilation in the Dalvik virtual machine, integration of the V8 JS engine into the standard browser, as well as multiple code optimizations. In the same version, the long-awaited opportunity to distribute the Internet using Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi hotspot) appeared, as well as a new home screen, in which a dock finally appeared, in the style of iOS. Six months later, version Android 2.3 Gingerbread was released, which featured Google's first steps to modernize the interface and bring it to a more acceptable look, as well as features such as SIP VoIP, improvements in power consumption and support for NFC chips.

2011: Android 3.0–4.0, Windows Phone 7.5 and iOS 5.0

2011 was the first year in the history of the “arms race” that did not bring any surprises in the field of mobile OS. Apple calmly and calmly continues to release new versions of smartphones, tablets and systematically update iOS. Microsoft signs a contract with Nokia and releases a minor update to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. Google releases Android 3.0 Honeycomb - a truly major OS update, which nevertheless does not create a resonance due to its focus only on tablets and closed source code, which has seriously limited the distribution of the OS.

Android 3.0 was introduced on February 22 along with the Motorola Xoom tablet and was less a finished OS and more an attempt by Google to invade the tablet market that had been rediscovered by Apple. The third version of the OS was not widely used, but it worked well as a demonstration of what the next versions of Android would be like. The operating system has been seriously redesigned, including in terms of the user interface, which finally received its own memorable and incredibly effective minimalist style, called Holo (from holographic - holographic). The interface not only became pleasing to the eye, but also received the long-awaited smooth operation thanks to the use of the graphics processor. Many other OS subsystems have also been redesigned, and the overall hardware requirements have increased significantly.

INFO

• Starting with the fourth version, iPhone OS began to bear the name iOS, and Apple had to license the new name from Cisco, which owned the rights to the trademark IOS, the OS that runs in routers.
• Back in 2007, HTC created for Google a prototype of the Google Sooner smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard under the screen, but the smartphone was never released to the market.
• Together with Android, Google created an alliance of mobile equipment manufacturers OHA (Open Handset Alliance), which today includes about fifty companies, including HTC, Motorola, Intel, LG, NVIDIA, Samsung and many others.

In the same year, Google released two more major OS updates, including versions 3.1 and 3.2, in which further work was carried out to unify the interface, optimize performance, and add support for various USB devices. However, their source code was also closed, and work on the “phone versions” of the system was essentially completed before the end of the year, when Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was introduced.

The fourth version of Android was an ideological continuation of Honeycomb, but aimed at both tablets and smartphones. Ice Cream Sandwich included a completely redesigned application stack, a home screen rewritten from scratch, implemented according to all the rules of the new Holo UI, a new Roboto font, great for displaying text on screens with high pixel density, a face unlock feature (which is easy to fool , showing the phone a photo of the owner), Wi-Fi Direct function for direct file transfer between devices, as well as long-awaited VPN support.

It was Ice Cream Sandwich that made Android not just “an iPhone alternative for the poor,” but a real competitor in the mobile OS market. Android 4.0 was functional, convenient, beautiful, easy to use and had features that its competitor did not have in principle.

In February, a new version of Windows Phone 7.5 was introduced, codenamed Mango, which integrated Internet Explorer 9, which has all the capabilities of the desktop version, expanded multitasking support for background applications, and added the ability to synchronize with Windows Live SkyDrive. Almost at the same time, Steve Ballmer announced an agreement with Nokia, according to which the latter would give preference to Windows Phone when choosing a mobile OS. In fact, this meant that Nokia was starting to produce smartphones only on Windows with all the ensuing consequences, in the form of stagnation and departure from the top five largest smartphone manufacturers due to users’ dislike for the “too unusual” and unpopular Windows Phone.

In October, Apple introduced iOS 5.0, which introduced functionality first proposed by Android developers, namely Notification Center, that is, a notification area accessible by sliding the status bar down. Also, the new version of the OS receives integration with iCloud, Apple's cloud service, functionally similar to Dropbox, and the iMessage service, which allows you to send SMS using an Internet connection.

2012: Android 4.0–4.2, Windows Phone 8 and iOS 6.0

The most significant event of 2012 was, of course, the release of Windows 8, with which Microsoft, unexpectedly for many, again made a serious leap forward. Although technically three operating systems were introduced, they are all now based on the same Windows NT codebase and are based on the Metro interface (which can be disabled in the desktop version). The API between systems is also now compatible, making app porting virtually a done deal, and tablet users essentially running a true desktop version of the system. This was very eloquently demonstrated by the example of the Windows Surface tablet presented at the same time with a detachable keyboard.

In fact, Windows 8 is a universal OS for all types of devices with one application repository, one interface, system for organizing menus and settings. An operating system in which the user will work with one software, regardless of the device, and will not get lost in the new interface. This is exactly what Apple and Google tried to achieve, but, oddly enough, Microsoft came first.

By the way, Google programmers also did not sit still and managed to release two incremental OS updates. In Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, they worked to increase productivity, interactive notifications appeared, and a smart desktop that learned to arrange elements on the screen in response to dragging a shortcut or widget. The Google Now assistant also appeared, which suggested various data based on what the user recently searched on Google, his location and activity on Google+. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean (yes, that's right) brought the ability to take spherical photos (similar to Google Street View), it introduced the long-awaited power buttons in the notification panel, a unified interface for tablets and smartphones, and SELinux integration.

Apple, in turn, introduced along with the iPhone 5 a new version of iOS with index 6.0, which, in fact, did not receive major changes, except for many minor improvements in built-in applications, integration with Facebook, and the removal of pre-installed YouTube and Google applications Maps (which, by the way, played a cruel joke on Apple, since Apple’s new vector maps turned out to be worthless).

Conclusion

Five years is not a long time, but the world of mobile technology has changed dramatically during this period. It seems incredible that we once used smartphones that didn't automatically sync with Google, had a bunch of buttons, and didn't have a centralized source of apps. Now all this is in the past, and it is difficult to imagine how the world will change over the next five years.

Hello friends, I’m starting to develop a section related to smartphones, now it’s fully operational. Now on the site you will find a bunch of interesting articles about Android smartphones. I will try to convey to users in as much detail as possible about new smartphones, that is, there will be a lot of news. Of course, I will focus on creating materials on working with the OS. So to speak, instructions from A to Z. For now, I’ll start with the simplest thing and write an article about what it is and what its advantages and disadvantages are. Now let's get to the point.

What is Android OS

Android is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, which was purchased by Google in 2005. In 2008, the first version of the operating system was released. This OS is designed for smartphones, tablets and many other devices. At the moment, it is built into watches, various navigators, set-top boxes and players.

Now a huge number of smartphones and other devices with this system are being created. It has gained tremendous popularity, so it has almost no competitors, except perhaps iOS.

I think it’s not worth listing the well-known brands of today’s phones, which are growing by leaps and bounds. So, they all use Android. If we talk about a pure system, we can say that it is very fast and productive. Many manufacturers, using this OS as a basis, create their own shell with additional functions, capabilities and design. Some people do this better, and the system flies, but in some devices it’s not so good. Using the operating system, you have the opportunity to control functions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS, create Wi-Fi access points, that is, turn your phone into a modem and much more. Modern smartphones are equipped with fingerprint and iris scanning sensors, which can greatly improve protection - all of this can be controlled using Android. Naturally, Apple with its iOS is trying to keep up.

Pros and cons

Let's look at the advantages and disadvantages:

• Since it is developed on the open source Linux kernel, the mobile system is also open source, which allows you to create whatever your heart desires for this system.
• The clean OS is highly optimized and is not demanding on devices. It can work on the weakest phone that is currently available, although this is already rare.
• The ability to customize the system for yourself.
• A huge number of add-ons and applications that greatly expand the capabilities of the OS.
• Speed ​​of operation (not in all cases).
• The system is available for the following hardware platforms: ARM, x86, MIPS.

These are the main positive characteristics that I noted for myself. Maybe there is something else. In addition to the advantages, there is also cons:

• An open-source operating system gives manufacturers of smartphones and tablets an advantage to create shells that are not always as optimized and efficient as possible. In addition, the shell update may come much later than the latest version of the official system is released.
• If the system is poorly optimized, then there is a possibility of high energy consumption. And atomicity is now highly valued. But it depends rather on the device manufacturers.
• Because of its popularity, hackers and other bad people write viruses for the OS and look for vulnerabilities. Of course, this OS has certain protection, not like Windows. Therefore, the disadvantage is insignificant.
• There have been cases where several million dollars in total have been stolen from users around the world. This was done by sending SMS without the user’s knowledge.

In addition to the pure system from Google, there are a number of enthusiasts developing their own firmware, which have their own functionality and capabilities. You will see a completely different design; it happens that the firmware of another manufacturer will work better than pure Android.

At the moment, there are companies that create firmware for smartphones and other devices: CyanogenMod, which is now LineageOS, AOKP, MIUI, Paranoid Android, AOSP, Replicant and others.

Enthusiastic developers try to release firmware versions on time, together with the release of a clean OS. But sometimes there is no need to flash the phone, since the manufacturers could take care of it.

Applications and Play Market

A little theory. The Android application code is written for the so-called Dalvic virtual machine. Applications have the format .apk, this is the only format. Until recently, applications themselves could be written in Java, but since 2009 Google added a special package of capabilities that allows you to create software in C and C++. Also, there are many development environments, such as Embarcadero RAD Studio.

As for the application store itself, it was opened in 2008. The agreement was that the software developers would give 30% of the profits to Google. By the standards of 2017, there are about more than 2.8 million applications in the Play Market database.

Of course, there were times when unscrupulous users posted applications with malicious code, which caused a scandal around 2011, but the problems were quickly hushed up and the vulnerabilities were closed.

No matter what anyone says, the direct specific Play Market is the App Store - an application store for iPhone, iPad, iPod and other devices. They have less software than the Play Market. Developers' income is the same as Google's. You create a paid application for which you will give 30% of the profits.

What's inside Android

And now, almost the penultimate point, in which I want to talk about the internal components of the system. Those who use this system should understand it at least a little. And compare it with Windows.

So, Linux differs from Windows in that the latter has information divided into disks and folders, of course, in Linux as well, but it is all displayed differently. Linux systems have a tree structure.

There are also differences in registers. If you create several folders with the same names, then on Windows there will be no difference, but on Linux these will be completely different folders. This also applies to files. These names will be different in Linux - Papka, papka, PAPKA.

The cache for the system and some application will always be saved in a special section - cache.

Surely everyone has seen the folder in the file manager data. This directory has other folders related to installation files and application directories.

Configuration files and software libraries can be found in the folder app-lib.

For applications to work, they are written in Java for a special Dalvik virtual machine. So you may come across a catalog dalvic-cache. Sometimes it needs to be cleaned, for example, before flashing the phone. This is done using root rights or from, but I will definitely talk about all this in future articles.

You will definitely see the directory in the file manager system. From the name it is clear that system settings are stored there, changing which can ruin your system.

In the catalog etc you will find files that allow the system to start normally.

These are not all the folders that are in the Android system. It will take several additional articles to sort it all out.

Additional Features

Many people know that each modification of the system has a key name, usually some kind of dessert. For example, Cupcake, which means cupcake. One of the popular versions 4.1-4.3 is called Jelly Bean(Jelly beans). But version 4.4 is named after the famous chocolate bar KitKat. The next modification 5.0 and 5.1 is called Lollipop- lollipop. Sixth option - Marshmallow and finally, the latest version 7.0-7.1.2 received the code Nougat.

There is just a little time left before the release of version 8, or as it is called Android O. The beta version of the operating system is already installed on some flagships and works stably. The entire OS will be released at the end of 2017. And yes, the keyword will most likely be - Oreo. Below you will see a video of the presentation of the eighth version.

Well guys, I finished the article, now you know what Android is, where it is used, its features. In future articles I will tell you almost everything related to this operating system. Well, I wish you good luck!

Today we will begin a series of articles devoted to the history of Android development. The first part will begin with the background, with how the system originated and what the mobile market was like at that time. In truth, many users were not even interested in this issue, were not interested in the development of what millions of users around the world use today. So let's finally understand what real Android is.

I would like to start from the moment when Android was not even planned yet. It was 2005. At that time, smartphones based on Symbian, Windows Mobile, and the company’s devices became widely popular on the market. Even at that time, phones were not so stupid, and they could well be called smartphones. Now, of course, for us these times seem very distant and long forgotten, but this is not so.

By the way, at the same time there was not even Twitter yet, and YouTube was considered a dubious startup, however, Vista was then among the ranks of innovative operating systems, and Apple actively denied the fact of developing the iPhone.

The most popular and innovative devices of that time were considered to be laptops, which today, unfortunately, and perhaps fortunately, are becoming victims of the development of other, more convenient means of communication.

Andy Rubin and Danger

Several years ago, before Android existed, there was a company called Danger, which was founded by former Apple engineer Andy Rubin. Andy was born in 1962 and grew up in New York (Chappaqua). He was the son of a psychologist who soon founded his own company. As a child, Rubin was interested in BBS (a way for computer users to communicate over switched telephone networks).

Zarko Draganic, Rubin's former colleague at Apple: "The classic Rubin approach is: You do something just for the sake of doing it, because it's cool..."

The company's main achievement was the development of the Hiptop smartphone. The device had a landscape keyboard, as well as software with which you could instantly share messages, surf the Internet and send email. In partnership with T-Mobile, Danger rebranded Hiptop as Sidekick.

The device became popular due to its unique business model, which was significantly different from other business models of the time. However, Larry Page and Sergey Brin soon noticed the company; their interest lay in the wider distribution of Google's search engine. Then, for unknown reasons, Andy Rubin was removed from his post as head of Danger, and he soon created a new company. His goal was to develop a completely open platform.

Founding of Android Inc.

The Android company has not produced or released any products for two years. At this time, Rubin and a small team of software engineers were trying to create a new generation of software for smartphones, and the main parameter was open source. In general, Android has become more of a logical continuation of everything that Rubin managed to achieve in Danger.

Investors quickly picked up the company's idea and began to support it, at the same time Google saw in Android what it needed. It needed a smartphone company to beat Microsoft and BlackBerry. Page and Brin wanted to see more devices on the market with Google's search engine, because even then services were of great importance, and Android, as an open source platform, was ideally suited to the requirements of Google's founders. And in July 2005, Google bought Android Inc. for 50 million dollars.

First prototypes

However, it should be understood that without hardware the software is useless. How many of you remember which Android smartphone was the very first? Your answer is probably incorrect. The very first prototype of the first Android smartphone was Sooner. The device was very similar in appearance to BlackBerry devices, as it had a full QWERTY keyboard.

The device was equipped with a display with a resolution of 320 x 240, a 1.3 megapixel camera, 64 megabytes of RAM, as well as GPRS support, a removable battery and even a slot for an SD card.

The reason for having a full keyboard and not having a touch display was due to the reluctance of consumers to switch to touchscreen smartphones. Even the iPhone was appreciated by few at first.

Graham Wheeler, director of service and products for HTC in Europe, believes that cooperation with Google was quite risky for HTC, because at that time Microsoft played a significant role in the market with its Windows Mobile, and Google at that time was not on the best terms with the latter . However, HTC decided to take a risk; the personal acquaintance of Peter Chow (CEO of HTC, who was recently removed from his position) and Andy Rubin from the days of Danger was of great importance in this. HTC saw promise in Android, because when developing the system, the emphasis was on access to the Internet, Andy wanted to give people the chance to “put” the Internet in their pockets.

“I remember my emotions then. We knew something big was at stake. Google was behind it all. I think we knew there was some potential in this - to give users the experience of using the Internet, to give people a platform and admin rights, and the freedom that we had as a manufacturer to push innovation. Google's strategy was very different from Microsoft's: Okay, we give you the platform and you can make your own changes. We want you - HTC - to make changes." - Graham

iPhone influence

There is no denying the influence of the iPhone on the development of Android, in particular, we are talking about the Sooner prototype. Yes, the iPhone was not the first fully touchscreen smartphone on the market, but Apple managed to rethink the way we use smartphones, focusing on responsiveness and touchscreen. However, then - in January 2007, when the iPhone 2G was shown - the heads of many leading companies of that time spoke unflatteringly about the new Apple product and even grinned.

Steve Ballmer, then the head of Microsoft, ridiculed the iPhone for its high price, carrier restrictions, and low data transfer speeds. BlackBerry manufacturer RIM also disdained the release of the iPhone.

However, only Google understood the seriousness of what was happening. And while everyone was ridiculing Apple’s brainchild, Google was busy working on a new smartphone. What happened to Sooner? It had to be abandoned.

“As a consumer, I was simply amazed. I wanted an iPhone immediately. However, as a Google engineer, I thought we needed to start over... We had a smartphone that looked like a phone from the 90s... And this was the case where everything seemed obvious,” - Chris De Salvo.

Andy's reaction was no less interesting:

“Yadryona Matryona! I don't think we should start shipping this phone (Sooner)."

Then it was decided to launch the touchscreen HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) on the market. However, we would like to see the Sooner as well, because the device looks very attractive to this day. Of course, the iPhone played a crucial role in the development of Android, and this is a case where healthy competition allows innovative products to come out ahead of schedule, even given the reluctance of consumers to use the product.

HTC Dream became one of the most innovative smartphones of its time. Externally, the device resembled a Sidekick. Technically, it probably won’t seem so advanced to you, but for that time it was quite enough to maintain the relatively fast operation of the system. Dream was equipped with a single-core processor with a clock frequency of 528 MHz, 192 megabytes of RAM, and a 3.2-inch display with a resolution of 320 x 480.

The HTC Dream was sold worldwide, unlike the original G1, which was locked to T-Mobile. Google gave HTC the opportunity to sell the G1 under its own brand. HTC Dream has become an excellent Android smartphone. Why? Because Google decided to take a chance.

Based on materials from androidcentral

Probably few people remember the first of the alleged iPhone killers - the T-Mobile G1 smartphone based on Android version 1.0.

On September 23, 2008, in New York, Google, HTC and the cellular operator T-Mobile presented the world with the first smartphone running the Android operating system - T-Mobile G1. A month later, it could be bought in the US for $179 with a two-year contract, and a little later it began to be sold in Europe under the name HTC G1 and without operator lock.

This smartphone looks like this:

T-Mobile G1 was equipped with a Qualcomm processor with a clock frequency of 528 megahertz, a 3.2-inch diagonal screen with a resolution of 320x480 pixels, a 256 megabyte drive, 192 megabytes of RAM, a 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-FI, GPS modules , Bluetooth 2.0, physical QWERTY keyboard and 1150 mAh battery. At the same time, the device weighed 158 grams and had dimensions of 117.7 × 55.7 × 17.1 mm.

At the time of release, the smartphone had 1,700 applications from third-party developers available. Google has ported to Android several applications that were previously released for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile: YouTube, maps, mail, calendar and Gtalk. Data from native applications was already synchronized in the cloud via a Google account.

The G1 was dubbed the iPhone killer, firstly because of its touchscreen, and secondly because it was superior to Apple's first smartphone in several important ways: higher camera resolution, battery life and memory card support. But the iPhone was lighter, thinner and more beautiful.

The design of the G1 left much to be desired, and it needed a physical keyboard - Android did not have an on-screen keyboard at that time. It's not clear why G1 turned out to be so scary. Take a look at Google's smartphone concepts from 2006, they're beautiful:

At that time, Google had no plans to use touch screens in smartphones. It was assumed that these devices would be controlled only using physical keys. The release of the iPhone in 2007 changed Google's plans.

The first Android smartphone could have been different. In February 2008, at the Mobile World Congress exhibition, prototypes of devices were demonstrated by several companies: ARM showed a smartphone with a completed body design, and NEC showed a board with a touch screen. Samsung was also developing developments at that time, but did not show them.

Any gadget owner knows that there are different versions of Android, the operating system that manufacturers install on their devices. It was originally created to manage only mobile phones. Then they began to use it on tablets, smart watches, virtual reality glasses and even. The incredible popularity of Android is due to the many useful functions that it received during its development. It is thanks to this that he easily surpassed his competitors Microsoft and Apple, conquering the market for almost all mobile devices. But it all started with a small startup. If Google had not seen such prospects in the Android OS, users might not have known what a modern gadget should be like.

This operating system became available to users in 2008. However, its development began 5 years before the release of the first version. The founder of the project was Andy Rubin, who, together with his friends, wanted to implement the idea of ​​​​creating an open operating system for mobile phones. They created and registered a company called Android Inc.

The ideas that formed the basis of Android seemed too innovative at that time. Therefore, the project did not arouse interest among investors who did not understand its essence. The exception was Google, which saved a literally bankrupt company in time. But she also became the full owner of the Android trademark and all developments.

Due to litigation with Oracle, one of the leading search engines was then going through hard times. It was decided to create Android as an open OS, which is focused primarily on Google services.

The first working version of Android that was not released

The developers were guided by the success of the then popular Blackberry company. Because of this, the first working version of Android had a similar interface. It appeared in mid-May 2007 and was called M3. The operating system was designed for phones with keys and a relatively small display. The main screen had the Google search bar as its main element.

The idea of ​​​​creating a touch screen phone was adopted from Apple, which by that time had released the first iPhone. If not for this event, the first version of Android would have appeared before 2008 and would have been intended for a regular push-button phone. The company decided to postpone the release of the OS and set a course for development specifically for touch screens. In addition, Andy Rubin was actively developing maps for the navigation service and wanted to create support for GPS technology in phones.

Official release of the first version of Android

Android 1.0 was released in September 2008. Since Google was not involved in the production of mobile devices, the company had to look for a manufacturer of phones for the new OS. The choice fell on the Taiwanese company HTC, which was one of the leaders in the production of devices running Windows Mobile from Microsoft. The first phone to use Android as an OS was called HTC Dream. It had a touch display, for which Google's OS was adapted.

Despite quite a lot of interest in the device on the new operating system, Android had to be significantly reworked. This was necessary in order to get rid of old concepts, eliminate identified shortcomings and make it more modern. The real success of Android came only with the release of version 1.6.

A month after the official release, the Android Market was opened - the official store of applications that are intended for this OS. It allowed a huge number of developers from all over the world to create applications for it and at the same time earn good money. For users, this store has become a place where they can quickly find and download the desired program for their phone.

Android versions 2.x

The developers significantly improved the functionality and appearance of the operating system for the release of Android 2.0, which was codenamed Eclair and was released in 2010. By the way, the idea of ​​​​giving “tasty” names to new versions was proposed by one of the developers and was initially considered as a joke. But Android 1.5 was eventually called Cupcake, version 1.6 - Donut. So the idea caught on and subsequent versions of the OS began to receive the names of sweets in alphabetical order.

The number of phone manufacturers with which Google collaborated had already increased significantly by this time. Motorola, Samsung, LG and other giants became interested in the promising OS. Competition in the market began to grow between them. To stand out from others using the same software, companies had to improve the hardware of their devices. In fact, Android became the reason for the “performance race” of manufactured smartphones.

In the same year, Google decided to release a branded smartphone. Since the company still did not have its own production facilities, HTC again took over the production of Google Nexus One (this is the name the new device received).

The developers continued to develop and improve their mobile operating system and Android 2.2 Froyo appeared that same year. This version added support for Adobe Flash technology, cloud data synchronization, and improved performance for programs that use JIT code compilation.

With the release of the most successful version of Android at that time, Google launched the second version of its branded smartphone. This time Samsung was chosen as the manufacturer. However, on the day the sales began, LG announced its new phone using a dual-core processor. Therefore, Nexus S failed to achieve significant commercial success.

Operating system for tablets

In 2011, Google decided to give a worthy answer to Apple for its iPad and adapted Android for tablets. Until then, this OS was only used on phones. So the version of Android 3.0 - Honeycomb - saw the light of day. Many companies such as Motorola, Samsung, Acer, Lenovo and others have begun to use this version of the OS for their Tablet PCs.

Due to some problems in the operation of Android 3 and its incompatibility with phones, in the future Google refuses to create versions of Android intended only for tablets.

Cross-platform OS

In the fall of 2011, the fourth version of Google's OS appeared, called Ice Cream Sandwich. The interface has been significantly redesigned and new functions have been added. It has already become cross-platform - it could be installed on both a tablet and a phone. With the release of this version of Android, the application store received a new name - Google Play.

In 2012-2013, the OS remained virtually unchanged. Google has focused more on producing devices running Android. This is how the Galaxy Nexus, ASUS Nexus 7, LG Nexus 4 smartphones and the Samsung Nexus 10 tablet PC appeared on the market.

In 2013, the latest version of Android 4.4 was released, called KitKat. According to the already familiar tradition, Nexus 5 was jointly released, for which LG was responsible for production. This version of the OS seemed almost perfect. The developers managed to create a convenient and attractive interface that was in no way inferior to iOS of that time. The operation of all services was debugged, support for a huge number of functions was added. But Google was not going to stop there.

Android 5 and OS versions for wearable devices

Deciding to expand the use of its OS, Google introduced a version of Android Wear designed for smart watches. But the most important event of that year was the release of the Android Lollipop version. It has completely redesigned the interface, which is called “Material Design”. In addition to external changes, significant internal modifications were made. Previously, the Dalvik virtual machine was responsible for processing application code. It was replaced by Android Runtime, thanks to which the OS performance was significantly increased and energy consumption was reduced.

Android version 6.0 with support for Google Now on Tap

Android 6 somewhat disappointed fans of this OS, since there were no significant changes in the interface and functionality. The developers focused on creating technology for searching the Internet for information about any element that is on the display. It's called Google Now on Tap. However, it did not gain the expected popularity.

In addition, Google has seriously taken to solving the problems with the vulnerability of its OS, beginning to regularly release patches and updates. It is also worth noting the emerging privilege management system, which requests permission to use certain functions of the device. To increase the operating time of devices, the Doze and App Standby functions were added.

Evolution of Android – Nougat release (Android version 7.0)

Currently, this seventh version of Android is the latest. Android Oreo (presumable name) will appear in the near future. In version 7 of Android, developers added the ability to simultaneously work with two applications by splitting the display. Despite the fact that many manufacturers have already implemented multitasking in their firmware, it is now officially supported.

The increase in operating speed was achieved by switching to the new Java 8 and updating the ART virtual machine. Applications in Android 7 run much faster due to the elimination of the “optimization stage” when they are first launched.

The innovations also affected the interface: you can now add any buttons at the user’s discretion to the quick settings panel. The appearance of notifications has become better, the settings menu is more detailed and structured. The new version of Android includes full support for virtual reality. Notifications are now grouped by application and have added emoji icons.

In addition to the above, Android 7.0 surpasses all previous versions thanks to the following features:

• ability to change display resolution;
• simplified OS update procedure;
• suspending background processes when the screen is off to save battery power;
• support for the new personal assistant Google Assistant;
• function to close all running applications with one click;
• support for instant applications that do not require installation;
• night mode for less strain on the eyes when using the device in the dark;
• Internet traffic saving function.

All this makes Android Nougat one of the best operating systems for mobile devices today. Judging by the announced innovations of the subsequent version of Android, they will be more of a cosmetic nature and will not bring anything revolutionary. Google is now focusing more on the security, performance, and energy efficiency of its OS. But the developers still do not forget to please users with at least small but useful changes in the interface and functionality.