Android versions. How did Android come about Which company owns Android
In recent years, the mobile market has changed so much that today even a top-end smartphone five years ago looks ridiculous and ridiculous. The development of mobile operating systems moved by leaps and bounds, and nothing remained of the once dominant Symbian and Windows Mobile but memories. In this article, we will try to understand what has happened over the past five years and why the changes have turned out to be so global.
2007: iPhone OS 1.0 and the first announcement of Android
2007 has become one of the most important years in the history of the development of pocket computers and smartphones. It was this year, on January 9, at the Macworld Conference & Expo that the iPhone was presented, which turned all the ideas of users about smartphones. After the presentation of "Steve Jobs' phone" all other smartphones instantly became obsolete, and so much so that if the iPhone were released a year later, the situation would not have changed at all.
It was the iPhone that set the style of interaction with the smartphone to which we are accustomed today. No control keys, no stylus or small elements on the screen, no joystick replaced by a large, clear screen, a truly smart operating system, a Mac OS X-like desktop, a full web browser and the concept of “multiple touches” to access any function of the device. Launched in June, the iPhone became an absolute hit in sales for several years to come and brought the Apple company billions in profits.
Interestingly, technically, the iPhone was not a breakthrough at all. Virtually all of the findings attributed to Steve Jobs and Apple have existed before, but as has always been the case with Apple, they were the first to figure out how to put the best together and implement it at such a high level. This was largely due to the use of a full-fledged operating system, which was actually a fork of the desktop Mac OS X and, as a result, had the broadest possibilities for creating applications. They could use any of the phone's features, including the 3D accelerator, which made the iPhone OS interface work surprisingly smoothly and quickly.
The first version of the 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, media player, scheduler, email client, alarm clock and others. For everything else, oddly enough, Steve Jobs suggested using web applications that already worked fine in the mobile version of Safari at that time. 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 one year after the start of sales of the first iPhone.
2007 was also the year of the announcement of Android, which clearly came under pressure from Apple's rapidly gaining popularity. Then Android appeared only in the form of a beta version of a development kit (SDK), equipped with an emulator in which you could "twist" the OS live.
On November 12, the SDK was uploaded to the Web, and any user or developer could make up his own personal impression of the OS and decide for himself whether it is worth his attention. And the impressions of most people were very mixed. The suspicious resemblance to the iPhone OS was immediately apparent; Android looked like some kind of ridiculous copy of the iPhone operating system, much less effective, but actually repeating it. Second, Google took a slightly odd but logical path by equipping the OS with a Dalvik virtual machine that executes its own bytecode format, which is generated from Java application bytecode.
However, the main feature of the OS was its obvious incompleteness, caused by the pursuit of the rapidly gaining popularity of the iPhone OS. In the first Android, there weren't even such simple things as an on-screen keyboard, Bluetooth and OpenGL support, the virtual machine executed bytecode without JIT compilation, and the general impression was created that the OS did not have some kind of center line, but there are many 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 over to its side, 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
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 much interest and was nothing more than a slightly modified version of the first iPhone, in which support for 3G and A-GPS appeared. But the operating system iPhone OS 2.0 again became a kind of breakthrough, bringing the owners of the old and new versions of the smartphone the long-awaited support for native applications.
The reasons why this event became so important are simple. Being a full-fledged OS that runs on standard modern hardware and supports all its capabilities, iPhone OS gave developers the ability 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 completely new class of mobile applications that use position sensors, a compass, a GPS module and the advantages of a large screen in their work. In addition, the iPhone OS, in fact, marked the beginning of the emergence of really high-quality mobile games that could boast of good 3D graphics (using the built-in 3D accelerator with full OpenGL support), as well as multi-finger touch 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 the absence of malicious behavior. It was possible to buy and install any software for a few taps on the screen, using the official App Store client, find out the ratings of applications and see screenshots before buying. Not being the inventor of the online app store as such, Apple actually became the promoter of this idea, completely banning users from installing software from other sources and, in fact, forcing a change in the mindset of users.
It should be noted 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 preserve the smoothness and "responsiveness" of the OS, Apple programmers left the ability to work in the background only to stock applications preinstalled in the OS, while third-party software was killed immediately after switching to another task. And although this approach smelled like DOS, it bore fruit in the early days of the OS, when the iPhone's performance was severely limited.
The second important and, perhaps, even more significant event in 2008 is actually the first birth of the Android operating system, which took place on September 23, together with the release of the 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. He received a double name: HTC Dream or T-Mobile G1. Only with the release of this device did the real zest of Android become obvious 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 a user to link to all these services once by entering their username and password from the mail. After that, messages received by e-mail and chat, notifications from the calendar began to pour onto the smartphone, and all contacts were automatically synchronized with Google. The same username and password were used to access the app store, which already included a lot of software developed over the year since the release of the Android SDK beta.
2009: iPhone OS 3.0 and Android 1.1–2.1
2009 can rightfully be considered the heyday of Android as a mobile OS. Mobile technology makers began to look closely at Android and announce their first devices based on it, Google continued to rush to refine the OS, patching multiple gaps in its design and functionality.
On February 9, the search giant releases the first update of the operating system under the index 1.1, which did not bring any special innovations and was released to fix the found bugs and problems in the API. At the end of April, the company released a full 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 flipping, and many others.
Six months later, on September 15, Google announced Android 1.6 Donut, which included many improvements, a speech synthesis engine, as well as, which is very important, support for higher screen resolutions than 320 by 480, and an integrated function of 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 for support for different screen resolutions (roughly speaking, the picture was simply scaled).
Just a month later, Google is releasing Android 2.0 Eclair, the latest in its 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 in stock applications such as SMS, browser and camera, which finally has support for various effects, digital zoom and macro focus.
The year 2009 is also the year of the release of the first models of smartphones running the new OS. The leader in this market is the Taiwanese HTC, which has released three new models of smartphones at once: HTC Magic, the more advanced HTC Hero and the budget HTC Tattoo. Later, the Chinese Huawei enters the game with a budget smartphone Pulse and Samsung with the first device of the legendary Galaxy line, as well as a budget "spoke" (Spica). However, the real sensation is made by the suddenly emerging from the shadows Motorola company with its - which later became 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 freshest Android 2.0. It was thanks to Android that Motorola was able to break into the seemingly already neglected smartphone market and subsequently firmly hold its position.
As for the iPhone OS, here Apple adheres to the same course of gradual annual upgrades. On July 17, Steve Jobs presents to the public the iPhone 3GS, equipped with an improved display, a more efficient 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 megapixel video camera (instead of 2 megapixels in iPhone 3G). As it should be, 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, search throughout the Spotlight smartphone, as well as the function of remote wipe and smartphone search.
2010: Windows Phone 7, Android 2.2–2.3, iOS 4.0
2010 was probably the most eventful year in the history of mobile technology. The most significant event was the announcement of the Windows Phone 7 operating system, on which work began in 2008. The OS was unveiled on February 15 at the Mobile World Congress and immediately attracted everyone's attention thanks to the completely new, unusual and incredibly effective Metro interface.
Metro looked stylish, minimalistic and at the same time took the experience of communicating with the OS and applications to a completely different level, or more precisely, it returned the user to the familiar models of interaction with the environment that we are used to in everyday life. The interface simultaneously combined all the main graphic components of a modern urban city, such as information boards, travel guides and glossy magazines, which made it intuitive and easy to use.
Interestingly, despite a completely new programming interface and API, which made all applications written for Windows Mobile incompatible with the new OS, inside Windows Phone it continued to be the same Windows CE with an outdated kernel based on Windows 95 technologies. and games Microsoft suggested using a special version of Silverlight and the XNA framework, which is also used in the Zune multimedia player and the Xbox 360. However, as in the case of iOS, the multitasking of the operating system was curtailed, so that the programmer could not count on the background execution of the application. but could use the API to perform some types of background tasks, such as retrieving mail or updating data from the web.
On October 11, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced ten Windows Phone 7 devices 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, in which multitasking finally appeared.
The central event in this whole chain, of course, is connected with the iPad - a tablet computer, which Steve Jobs spoke about back in 1983, predicting the release of "a powerful computer with the size of a book, learning how to use which will take no more than twenty minutes." From a technical point of view, the revolution did not happen this time either. In fact, 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 did not differ much from the version for a smartphone and allowed using all the same applications. However, due to the quality of workmanship, Apple has once again managed to open up a whole new market.
the iPad was introduced in April, but in June, following its tradition, Apple announced the iPhone 4, the main features of which were a 960 x 640 pixel screen, twice the amount of RAM (512 MB) and a 0.3 megapixel front camera for video calls ... Together with the new iPhone, iOS 4.0 was introduced, which became the first OS incompatible with some previous versions of the smartphone and available for a new type of device - iPad.
The main highlight of iOS 4.0 has become a more complete, but at the same time incomplete multitasking. From now on, third-party applications could run in the background, but their capabilities were limited to a set of "background APIs", much the same as it is implemented in Windows Phone. Apps could play music, locate the device, display notifications, request extra time to complete an unfinished task, but they couldn't “just run” in the background, as they do on desktop or Android operating systems.
For the Android ecosystem, 2010 turned out to be no less significant. It was this year that became 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 by the middle of the year 100 thousand applications could 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, Android 2.2 Froyo was introduced, the main feature of which was the performance improvement due to the inclusion of JIT compilation in the Dalvik virtual machine, the integration of the V8 JS engine into the standard browser, as well as multiple code optimizations. In the same version, the long-awaited ability 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 manner of iOS. Six months later, Android 2.3 Gingerbread was released, in which it was possible to mark the first steps of Google to modernize the interface and bring it to a more acceptable form, 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", which 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 contract with Nokia and releases Windows Phone 7.5 Mango minor update. Google is releasing Android 3.0 Honeycomb, a truly major OS update that doesn't resonate with its tablet-only focus and closed source code that severely limited OS distribution.
Android 3.0 was unveiled on February 22nd along with the Motorola Xoom tablet and was not a complete OS, but Google's attempt to invade the tablet market that Apple had re-opened. The third version of the OS was not widely adopted, but it worked perfectly as a demonstration of what the next versions of Android will be like. The operating system has been seriously redesigned, including in terms of the user interface, which finally gets its own catchy and incredibly effective minimalist style, called Holo (from holographic - holographic). The interface not only became pleasing to the eye, but also got the long-awaited smooth operation thanks to the use of the GPU. Many other OS subsystems have also been redesigned, and the overall hardware requirements have increased significantly.
INFO
- Beginning with the fourth version, the iPhone OS began to bear the name iOS, and Apple had to license the new name from Cisco, which owned the rights to the IOS trademark, the OS that runs in routers.
- Back in 2007, HTC created a prototype Google Sooner smartphone for Google with a full-fledged QWERTY keyboard below the screen, but the smartphone was never released to the market.
- Together with Android, Google has created an alliance of mobile technology 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 support for various USB devices. However, their source code was also closed, and work on the "phone versions" of the system was actually completed before the end of the year, when Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was introduced.
The fourth version of Android became the ideological continuation of Honeycomb, but focused on both tablets and smartphones. Ice Cream Sandwich included a completely redesigned application stack, a rewritten home screen that followed all the rules of the new Holo UI, a new Roboto font that is great for displaying text on high pixel density screens, a face unlock function (which is easily fooled showing the phone the owner's photo), Wi-Fi Direct for direct file transfer between devices, and 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, user-friendly, beautiful, easy to use, and packed with features that its rival did not.
In February, a new version of Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed Mango, was introduced, which integrated Internet Explorer 9 with all the features of the desktop version, extended support for multitasking for background applications and added the ability to sync with Windows Live SkyDrive. Almost at the same time, Steve Ballmer announced an agreement with Nokia, according to which the latter will give preference to Windows Phone when choosing a mobile OS. In fact, this meant that Nokia was starting to release smartphones only on Windows with all the ensuing consequences, in the form of stagnation and departure from the top five smartphone manufacturers due to the dislike of users for "too unusual" and unpopular Windows Phone.
In October, Apple introduces iOS 5.0, which introduces functionality first offered by Android developers, namely the Notification Center, that is, the notification area accessible by pulling the status bar down. Also, the new version of the OS gets 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
Windows 8 Metro style desktopThe 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. While technically there were three operating systems, they are all now based on the same Windows NT codebase and based on the Metro interface (which can be disabled in the desktop version). The APIs between systems are also now interoperable, making porting applications virtually complete, and tablet users effectively running the system on a desktop. This was very eloquently shown on the example of the Windows Surface tablet with a disconnectable keyboard presented at the same time.
In fact, Windows 8 is a universal operating system for all types of devices with one application repository, one interface, a 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 come up with, but the first came, oddly enough, Microsoft.
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 on increasing productivity, there were interactive notifications, a smart desktop that learned to arrange items on the screen in response to dragging a shortcut or widget. There was also a Google Now assistant, 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), the long-awaited power buttons in the notification bar, a single interface for tablets and smartphones, and SELinux integration.
Apple, in turn, introduced along with the iPhone 5 a new version of iOS with an index of 6.0, which, in fact, did not receive major changes, except for many small improvements in built-in applications, integration with Facebook, as well as the removal of YouTube and Google from the pre-installed applications Maps (which, by the way, played a cruel joke with Apple, since Apple's new vector maps turned out to be useless).
Conclusion
Five years is a short time, but the world of mobile technology has changed dramatically during this period. It seems incredible that we once used smartphones that did not know how to automatically sync with Google, had a bunch of buttons and did not have a centralized source of applications. Now all this is in the past, and it is difficult to imagine how the world will change over the next five years.
Articles and Life Hacks
In 2003, Andy Rubin and his colleagues founded Android Inc., which was engaged in the development and production of mobile technology that adapts to its users based on geolocation data.
The history of Android as we know it includes many turning points.
Already 2 years after its foundation, the company was absorbed by Google, and three years later, Android appeared - an operating system that today enjoys unchanged popularity.
Platform history
- The official year of the appearance of this platform is considered 2008. The first version of the operating system received the ironic name Apple Pie, and it was iOS that became the main competitor to Android.
- Based on the Linux kernel, Android is open source. The first smartphone running this operating system was HTC Dream. At that time, he possessed impressive technical parameters.
- In just the first year of the Android platform's existence, Google has updated it three times. This was followed by versions 2.0 and 2.1. In parallel, new mobile devices from HTC, Samsung and Motorola continued to go on sale.
Together with this version, a second branded smartphone from Google appeared, namely the Nexus S. Any version of the device gave (and still gives) the opportunity to conveniently work with it: call, view texts, go online.
The first version of Android for tablets was 3.0 Honeycomb. It looked great, although it had some flaws.
The end of 2011 was marked by the merger of two versions of Android, that is, versions for mobile devices and for tablets. The updated system is called 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Among its distinctive features: support for 2 new processor architectures. This platform also has several awards.
Today's history of the OS is inextricably linked with the release of the version of Android Wear, which was announced in 2014. This system is intended exclusively for portable devices. In addition, Auto and TV versions were also presented.
Android today
Today Android is not just a system for tablets and mobile devices. As already mentioned, there are versions for TVs and cars.
In addition, e-books, game consoles, Google glasses, wristwatches, players and many other devices work under its control.
Experts point out that Android often performs better than its main competitors, that is, iOS. Among the advantages: integration with other services and web surfing capabilities.
In addition, it is open source, which offers wide freedom of action.
The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service took over Google corporation last week. She launched an antitrust investigation into a complaint from Yandex. The reason is that Google prohibits the pre-installation of competitors' applications and services on devices powered by its Android mobile operating system. The price of the issue is quite high. A billion Android devices were sold worldwide last year. In Russia, the share of Android smartphones exceeds 80%.
The Village learned how the operating system came about and why it became so popular.
Smartphone for geeks
Future Android creator Andy Rubin grew up in Chappaqua, New York.
At some point, his father changed from a psychologist to an electronics salesman, and Andy's room was filled with the latest gadgets. Back in school, he was crazy about computers, and after college he went to work at Carl Zeiss, where he was engaged in the development of robotic equipment. Then Rubin moved to Switzerland and could have stayed there for the rest of his life, if not for the 1989 Cayman Islands vacation. On an early sunny morning, he was walking along the beach and saw a man sleeping in a sun lounger. It turned out to be Apple developer Bill Caswell (the girl kicked him out of the bungalow after an argument). Rubin got into a conversation with him and offered to live in his cottage. Soon, Caswell invited him to return to the United States and join Apple (at that time it had just released its famous Macintosh). At the corporation Rubin was involved in the development of the Quadra computer model.
Photo: karitsu
In 1990, Apple spun off computing device development into a separate company called General Magic, where Rubin ended up two years later. Together with other developers, he built a kind of attic with beds above the working open space and began to spend all his time in the office, developing the Magic Cap operating system for mobile phones. But the idea was ahead of its time: telecommunications companies were not ready to accept it, and the company closed.
Then, together with other Apple veterans, Rubin developed WebTV - a kind of prototype of future Smart TVs. In 1997, their company was bought by Microsoft. Once with friends, programmers during a meeting that lasted until late at night, they decided to make a small candy bar that would cost ten dollars and allow you to scan any object and immediately find information about it on the Internet. “Such a digital sponge for attracting people to websites,” explained Rubin. Friends founded the Danger Company in Palo Alto, named after the robot from the old TV show Lost in Space, which repeated the word all the time. They added a radio and a transmitter to the new device, and then began to tell investors about their smartphone with Internet access called Sidekick. Aspiring venture capitalist Greg Galanos believed in the idea and invested money in the project.
In early 2002, Rubin talked about the development of his Sidekick to Stanford students. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin attended this lecture for some reason. After that, Page examined the device, saw that Google search was pre-installed there by default, and said: "Cool."
The birth of Android
In the spring of that year, Page and Brin were already carrying Sidekick smartphones that could go online wherever there was a connection. A gadget with a small slide-out keyboard has become popular among the Silicon Valley geeks. By that time, from a developer, Rubin had become a project manager. “I had to switch my brains,” he admitted. Even then, he came up with a business model that would make it possible to reconcile the manufacturers of devices and software. But sales of gadgets were still small. Three years later, Danger changed director, and Rubin left the company. He traveled to the Caymans again in search of new ideas and returned with a mobile platform project open to all developers. For her, he hired several programmers, and also decided to use the domain Android.com that he bought some time ago.
Photo: Cedric Sam
When Rubin spent all his savings on development, he called his friend Steve Perlman and said: "I'm broke, I urgently need money." He withdrew 10 thousand dollars from his account, arrived at Rubin's office and poured a mountain of one hundred dollar bills on his desk. In total, Pearlman loaned Ruby $ 100,000, which helped complete Android. In 2005, the entrepreneur began to negotiate with various investors, in particular, he sent a letter to Larry Page. In August of that year, Google bought Android. The amount of the deal was not disclosed, Rubin and other developers went to work for the corporation.
In the mid-2000s, the smartphone market developed at a frantic pace: BlackBerry and LG entered the market, Apple introduced its first iPhone. There were rumors that Google was preparing its own gadget. Instead, the company announced in November 2007 that it had formed the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of mobile developers supporting open source software. On the same day, she introduced the Android operating system, which, unlike iOS, could be used by any device manufacturer. HTC was the first to introduce it. But her smartphone did not become a hit of sales: in those years, everyone followed the new products from Apple, Android devices were perceived only as a cheap replacement for the creations of Steve Jobs.
Market capture
By 2009, Rubin's team didn't have a truly big hit. Then the deputy director of Motorola, Jha Sanjay, turned to Google, who offered to surprise the world together. A year later, the Droid hit the market, which ran faster than Apple's models and had more advanced features. The new gadget made Motorola profitable again and displaced the iPhone in the market. Soon, HTC's Nexus and other gadgets came to the market, which users received with great enthusiasm. Each day they activated 300 Android devices, while the iPhone, iPad, and iPod had a total of 275,000 activations. And since then the share of Android has been growing (the decline was observed only in the fourth quarter of last year).
Unlike Apple, which made the devices itself, developed the operating system, controlled the application makers, not allowing competitors to sell their products on the App Store, Google declared openness and freedom. It provided Android to gadget manufacturers for free (although it had to provide the corporation with a smartphone for testing to access the app store). The developers did not submit their applications for preliminary approval - the company removed them only on complaints from users. At the same time, Rubin inserted Google search into all gadgets by default.
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns
Android constantly received updates that bore the names of sweets: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, KitKat and others. Developers loved them, with over a billion Android devices activated in 2013, with over 25 billion downloads of apps.
Founder's departure
By that time, Andy Rubin had ceased to lead the project. His place was taken by Sanjay Pichai, and Rubin himself moved to the division that develops his favorite robots. But he quit last fall to run an incubator for gadget design startups. “I like doing things that interest a large number of people,” Rubin said. His Android changed the world of mobile devices - perhaps the new business will be just as successful.
Meanwhile, the operating system he created develops further. Recently it became known that Google is going to offer Android users the tools to work. Even those companies that do not have a mail or Google calendar will be able to use the company's services from their smartphone. However, they will be compatible with the same Google.Docs. Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Adobe, Sony, Cisco and BlackBerry have already announced their interest in this project. Chances are good that Android will soon become a familiar tool not only for communication on the phone, but also for work.
The path of a small company and its leader from debt to global success.
In 2004, Andy Rubin approached his friend, Steve Perlman, on an urgent matter. Rubin's startup, Android, was going through hard times, and while Andy was reluctant to ask for money again, the situation left him no choice.
Android company, which developed mobile software for phones, ran out of its financial resources, and other investors were in no hurry to invest.
Pearlman agreed to provide the necessary funding as soon as possible.
Rubin said nervously, "Maybe things will get better soon." The rent payments for the Android office were already overdue, and the owner of the premises threatened to evict.
Pearlman went to the bank, withdrew $ 10,000 in $ 100 bills and gave them to Rubin. The next day, he transferred an undisclosed amount to his Android account, which became the seed funding for the project. In an interview with Business Insider, Pearlman said:
"I did it because I believed in this idea and because I wanted to help Andy."
With the money in hand, Rubin brought Android back to life. He secured additional funding and moved the team to a larger office in Palo Alto, California, a prominent West Coast technology hub.
Today, Android is installed on about 85% of smartphones worldwide, while the iPhone accounts for only 11%. The system is evolving towards wristwatches, cars and televisions. It's not hard to imagine a time when Android will be everywhere - from ovens and thermostats to toothbrushes.
In order to take 85% of the smartphone market, Rubin had to fight two of the most significant and profitable technology companies of his era: Microsoft and Apple. He had to oppose mobile operators, which had already taken strategic positions in the communications market. He had to get phone makers to believe in his radical new vision.
Ruby was not alone. He was helped by investors like Pearlman and Google. The Android story, based on a series of interviews that Business Insider conducted with representatives of several early-stage companies, goes like this.
Impossible idea
In his 29 years in Silicon Valley, Andy Rubin has built a reputation as a tech genius, talented businessman, and dynamic leader.
First of all, Rubin is an entrepreneur who enjoys creating something new, whether it be writing software code or manufacturing robots.
His engineering talent manifested itself while working in Building 44 on the Google campus. There, Rubin, in his spare time, programmed a huge robotic arm to make coffee for him on a command sent via SMS. The robot was set up on the second floor of Building 44 and, according to a former Google employee, was large enough to lift cars.
In another project, Rubin launched a large remote-controlled helicopter on the lawn in front of Google buildings. Samit Agarwal, former Google Mobile Product Manager, says:
“A giant helicopter for 5 thousand dollars: Rubin tries to fly it, and it takes off and turns upside down. No, the helicopter did not explode, but just flew in the literal sense of the word - right on the lawn by the building 44 "
Long before Rubin had the pleasure of tackling giant robots at Google, he had to prove that he was able to implement his crazy ideas. One of the craziest was the creation of an open operating system for phones in the early 2000s.
At the time, mobile operators controlled everything from the marketing positioning of phones to their cost. Their power was complete - and, of course, the operators wanted to keep things that way. Of course, they were against the idea of \u200b\u200bsome other company - big or small - sharing revenues with them, which is why most of the tech industry considered Rubin's idea unrealizable.
Unlike various closed systems of mobile operators, Android is an open source system. This means that anyone can use the original Android code on their devices for free, as well as modify and modify it.
Initially, Rubin developed Android for cameras, but failed to interest investors. So he teamed up with Chris White, who previously designed the interface for WebTV, and Nick Sears, the former head of marketing at T-Mobile, with whom Rubin worked on the Danger Hiptop communicator, which became widely known as the T-Mobile Sidekick. Rubin explained that his idea was to create an open source operating system for phones. Rich Miner, co-founder of Android and head of the East Coast investment group at Google Ventures, joined in February 2004.
The person behind the idea
Andy Rubin
Rubin graduated from Utica College in upstate New York. Prior to Android, he had a long career in high technology, starting his career as a design engineer at Carl Zeiss Microscopy, which he held for about a year from 1986-1987.
After quitting Carl Zeiss, Rubin moved to Switzerland to work for a robot company. In 1989, while on vacation in the Cayman Islands, Rubin met an Apple engineer named Bill Coswell.
Rubin and Coswell were barely acquainted, but Rubin was kind enough to offer to stay with him when Coswell had a falling out with a girl and was evicted from his cottage on the beach.
Coswell, in turn, offered Rubin a programmer position at Apple, which he held from 1989 to 1992. Rubin's love for robots was evident already during his work at Apple - according to The Verge, then he earned the nickname Android.
At this time, Rubin was very fond of jokes. He once got himself into trouble by reprogramming the internal system of Apple's phones so that then-Apple CEO John Scully had called Rubin's colleagues and offered them stock.
Rubin and Perlman, now the CEO of Artemis Networks, which develops alternatives to traditional mobile communications, later left Apple for General Magic, which split from Apple in the early 90s. This company is known for creating a handheld personal computer, which many consider the forerunner of modern smartphones.
Rubin worked at General Magic from 1995 to 1997, after which he moved to WebTV, which was later acquired by Microsoft and changed its name to MSN TV. Pearlman founded WebTV and followed Rubin to Microsoft. After leaving Microsoft in 1999, Rubin founded his own company Danger, a startup that created the T-Mobile Sidekick phone.
Little did Rubin know at the time that he was making the first big breakthrough, which would later lead to his next startup being acquired by Google.
Google will call
Google co-founder Larry Page talks over lunch during the Clinton Global Initiative. New York, September 27, 2007
Back when many considered the idea of \u200b\u200bAndroid crazy, Andy Rubin found support in the person of Larry Page.
The Google co-founder, who was director of product at the time, learned about the Android project and asked his employee to contact Andy Rubin. Perhaps this was the most important call in Rubin's life.
A Google spokesman told Rubin that the company found out about his project and wanted to offer its "help." Page had previously met Rubin during a conference at Stanford University.
Rubin and Sears arrived at Google's Mountain View headquarters in early January 2005. The meeting was attended by Page and Google's second founder, Sergey Brin, as well as George Harik, a Google Ventures consultant and one of the company's first ten employees.
Paige was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Bryn was barefoot, but he had a plastic Disney watch on his wrist. He sat next to two cans of candy and tossed handfuls of them into his mouth.
Without wasting time, Page praised Rubin's work and called the T-Mobile Sidekick one of the best phones he has ever seen.
Brin made some jokes and questioned Rubin in great detail about the technology side of the Sidekick.
Sergey Brin
The purpose of the meeting was not to praise Rubin - Brin also wanted to test him. He asked hard about what could have been done differently to make the Sidekick even better, and why Rubin decided to create this phone that way.
This conversation was not a struggle, but an exercise in joint problem solving.
After the meeting, Rubin and Sears realized one thing: Google was interested in Android. But it was not clear why.
Was Google on their side? Has Google developed its own mobile software and tried to learn the competition in this way?
A month and a half later, when Google invited Rubin to their next meeting, Page's intentions became clear. All four Android founders were present this time around, and they took a prototype with them to showcase. Harik got down to business right away: Google wanted to acquire Android.
The founders were confused. Android needed money. Rubin, co-founder of Android Chris White and Sears agreed to the deal, but Rich Miner - the fourth Android co-founder and now at Google Ventures - wanted to keep the company small.
In the end, Android agreed to Google's offer; the amount of the deal, according to some sources, was $ 50 million. Six months after the first meeting in January, the Android team moved to Google's headquarters, the Googleplex. This happened on July 11, 2005.
"New model"
Android's office in Building 44, where the team moved from Building 41 in April 2006, was different from the rest of Google's premises. The entrance to the secluded area was guarded by a robot from the TV series Battlestar Galactica, and the entire workspace was filled with strange gadgets, mysterious devices and robots. One of the first employees says:
“Android didn't really want to be part of big Google. She tried to keep her distance. "
Typically, in order to improve quality, Google analyzes each piece of code before it becomes part of the product. Android representatives resisted this idea and showed their code to the Google team only a couple of years later.
Another former Google employee says that at first, Android existed inside Google as an “island” with its own culture inside a closed group of people. One of Rubin's former colleagues recalls:
“I didn't understand that Rubin is creating a startup inside Google. That's what it really was. "
Android stick near Google building
The Android team's strategy for the mobile market was also foreign to other Google employees at the time. If you tried to explain the idea behind Android in 2005-2006, the answer would most likely be, "Well, good luck."
Before Android, Google focused on installing its applications on other phones - made by Nokia or Blackberry, for example. Android's idea was to create its own system, owned by Google, to distribute services in addition to Google apps on other platforms. One of the staff says:
“This can be called the old model. And we were the new model. "
However, in order to begin distributing the Android operating system, Google needed to design a phone that would work on it. And then find a mobile operator who would take this phone for sale. One of Rubin's former colleagues says:
“If it was only about going and developing a phone, that's one thing. Apple did this. We had to first create a telephone, and then develop infrastructure, find partners and allies. "
This meant establishing partnerships with component and smartphone manufacturers as well as telecom operators. Everything in order to create a device that then seemed to break all the rules. One of the staff says:
“Rubin worked very skillfully with manufacturers, this is rare. Very often, those who can speak the language of engineers are unable to conduct a conversation in the language of directors at company board meetings. But Rubin was able to do both ”.
We can say that the Google and Android teams created their first phone, the G1, as a proof of idea. They aimed to show potential partners what Android is capable of, so that they would want to use it on their phones.
Neither carrier was willing to partner with Google for the launch of the first Android phone in 2007. Verizon declined the offer, Sprint was not interested, and AT&T did not respond. Even T-Mobile, which later agreed to release the G1, initially refused. The source states: "It was not the best time in Android history."
G1, or HTC Dream
Operators wanted to sell content for phones and take all the profits for themselves, so they were against cooperation with other companies. They were intermediaries between manufacturers and buyers of mobile phones and were not going to give up positions.
The Android team knew the best bet at the time was T-Mobile. After six months of negotiations with T-Mobile, the operator backed down and said it did not want to make a deal with Google.
Rubin was one of the few Google employees who knew the T-Mobile deal had fallen through. The source says:
“He was disappointed, but Andy is not one to show his disappointment to everyone. There were still those who did not refuse us. Of course, he didn't like the situation as he knew that this was our best option and that we spent a lot of time on it. "
But in the end, T-Mobile got the deal - in large part because Nick Sears, one of the founders of Android, had previously been marketing T-Mobile and was able to persuade then-CEO Robert Dotson to agree.
Who changed the situation?
Google has finally overcome one of its biggest hurdles: it has found an operator ready to launch its first Android phone. But just at the time when Google was finalizing the G1, another event happened: Apple presented its smartphone. In How Apple and Google Fought and Started a War, Started a Revolution, Fred Vogelstein writes:
“[Rubin] was so shocked by what Jobs was showing that he told the chauffeur to stop to watch the webcast to the end. “Damn it,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car with him. “It looks like we won't be able to sell our phone.”
Rubin and the team changed the original plan and ended up creating a phone that was very different from the original idea. The first version of the G1 did not have a touchscreen, had a sliding keyboard, and was aimed primarily at an audience that preferred BlackBerry. Apple was the first to make a big bet that the touchscreen will become the main method of interacting with computers for the foreseeable future. One employee recalls what the launch of Apple's smartphone looked like from inside Google:
"Everything has changed. We went back to the drawings and rethought everything: do we want to release this product without a touchscreen? We had to start from the beginning and make the decision again. "
Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone
Another former Google employee describes the situation differently. According to Samit Agarwal, who served as product manager, the company was developing features for touchscreen products, such as two-finger zooming, long before the iPhone was introduced to the public. Agarwal says:
“Everyone considers this moment to be a landmark. The only thing I can say about direct influence from Apple was the likelihood that users would want to switch to touchscreen entirely. Everyone knew that the future was his. I think Apple made Android move faster in this direction. "
"Crusade against the iPhone"
While the Android team had to back down, their success was strangely helped by ... the iPhone.
the iPhone was released exclusively for AT&T, and the hype surrounding the device was big enough to convince the world of the importance of the event.
According to a former Android team member, by 2009, the growing success of the iPhone became a problem for Verizon: the company at the time did not have a smartphone that could compete with the iPhone.
the iPhone forced mobile phone manufacturers and carriers to side with Android.
Operators viewed the iPhone as the biggest threat to their business model. In the case of the iPhone, the relationship with the buyer was in the sphere of influence of Apple - not AT&T. And customers moved from other carriers to AT&T in order to get the iPhone.
Therefore, with the release of the iPhone, it became easier for the Android team to negotiate with operators.
Compared to iPhones, Android phones now looked more enticing to carriers. Rubin and his team presented Android as a platform for developers - not buyers, which gave more confidence to phone makers and carriers. A former Android employee at Google explains:
“At that time, the main strategy was opposition. Consider what Android gives as a way to counter the iPhone's ability to make them lose influence. Let's find the conditions so that the operators will be glad of our help in the crusade against the iPhone. "
Operators' control was manifested in the fact that they could modify the phones and add their own branding.
Android's first big victory
Motorola droid
While BlackBerry is at the bottom of the smartphone market today, it was the leading player in the early 2000s. The iPhone gained significant weight shortly after its release in 2007, and Android was virtually non-existent at the time.
The Verizon operator clearly saw the threat, but did not find what to counter it. Unlike Motorola.
Motorola has developed an Android phone. It was not as thin as the iPhone, rather large and had a slide-out keyboard. But when it came out in 2009, it was the best non-iPhone on the market.
Verizon has invested $ 100 million in marketing the Motorola Droid phone, which got its name from the films of George Lucas. It didn't do as well as the monetary value of the iPhone, but it was good enough to draw the world's attention to Android.
Rubin's platform became mainstream and eventually pushed the iPhone to the sidelines. Jonathan Matus, a former Google employee who led the Android marketing team from 2007 to 2010, says:
“I remember the toasts and congratulations as the team crowded into the conference room, watching closely the sales growth on the first day after the device went to market.”
"The magic of Andy Rubin"
Asking the question of what exactly is responsible for the tremendous popularity that Android has today, you will not get a clear answer. This success has many components, and one of them is that Rubin was able to negotiate with mobile operators in the early 2000s. He realized that they would not want to lose influence, and with the help of other members of the Google and Android team, convinced them that his software would prevent this. At the same time, the operators' power was not undivided - for example, the first Droid was the result of a combined effort of Motorola, Google and Verizon. This became apparent in the final product. The source reports:
"The use of open source was important because it gave operators and manufacturers the confidence that Google wouldn't take over the entire Android platform."
Ruby no longer influences what happens to Android - now Sundar Pichai is in charge of Android, Chrome and most of the other major Google products. He has been with Android for about two years now - in March 2013, Rubin left the Android division at Google to return to his first love: robots. He ran the robotics department at Google before leaving the company in 2014 to focus on his own startup incubator, named Playground.global on Rubin's LinkedIn profile.
By nature, Rubin is an entrepreneur - he perfectly understands how to build a company and foresee all the obstacles that may be encountered along the way. Android is the strongest proof of this.
Rubin is one of the people who made Google and others in the wireless industry believe that he and Android could do the impossible. One of the colleagues who worked closely with Rubin says:
“And that's the magic of Andy Rubin. It attracts talent and each member contributes. He has a very strong vision and the ability to create a complete picture. It's all about his skill, in some special level that allows him to attract talents and make others believe in the way he is going. "
Android operating system from Google
Android development history, Android updates, Android Market
Section 1. Characteristics of the Android operating system.
Android is a portable (network) operating system for communicators, tablet computers, e-books, digital players, wristwatches, netbooks and smartbooks based on the Linux kernel.
Android is a relatively young operating system used on a wide range of mobile devices.
Android operating system specifications
Originally developed by Android Inc., which was then acquired by Google. Subsequently, Google initiated the creation of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), which is now engaged in the support and further development of the platform. Android allows you to create Java applications that control the device through libraries developed by Google. The Android Native Development Kit builds applications written in C and other languages.
75% of smartphones sold in the third quarter of 2012 had the Android operating system.
under Android control, you can find both communicators (the most common class) and tablet PCs (tablets), netbooks or smartbooks. Also, manufacturers do not stop experimenting, embedding the OS in various equipment. You won't surprise anyone with an Android watch or a TV box.
The operating system was developed by Android Inc., which was then acquired by Google and transferred to OHA - the Open Handset Alliance, an association dedicated to the development and implementation of open mobile standards. In addition to Google, OHA includes such giants as HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Samsung, LG, T-Mobile and Nvidia.
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Although the OS is based on the Linux kernel, it does not use all the features of this operating system. The reason for this is the use of the Dalvik virtual machine, in which all the software runs. But with the release of the Native Development Kit, developers have the opportunity to create native applications in C and other programming languages.
Update historyAndroid
The first version of Android was presented back in September 2008 and only for the T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream) communicator. He also received an update to version 1.1, announced six months later.
The rapid development of the operating system began with the Cupcake (1.5) and Donut (1.6) versions. Version 2.0 of Eclair became an intermediate version, and version 2.1 bore the same name. It was under the control of the latter that some of the most popular devices were presented - Nexus One and its "brother" HTC Desire.
Then came the release of Android 2.2 Froyo, giving users support for web technologies HTML5 and Flash 10.1, which allowed them to gain a significant advantage over the competition.
Next, the company introduced Android 2.3 Gingerbread with an updated user interface, NFC support, multiple cameras and high-definition displays.
But the biggest changes we see in Android 3.0 Honeycomb, a special version for tablets. It uses a completely different user interface, 3D effects, a user-friendly browser, and many other enhancements.
Unfortunately, Android 3.0 Honeycomb will only be available for tablets. On communicators, we will be able to see only ported versions or ...
At the moment, the version of Android 2.4 is known only from rumors. But, perhaps, it is she who will become an analogue of the tablet version adapted for smartphones and communicators.
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Since the release of the first version in September 2008, there have been several system updates. These updates, as a rule, relate to fixing detected errors and adding new functionality to the system. Each version of the system gets its own dessert-themed codename. Codenames are assigned in alphabetical order.
By November 2012, 14 versions of the system were released. The latest version is 4.2 Jelly Bean ("Lollipop with a gummy filling").
There is a community of enthusiasts developing completely open versions of android firmware (such as CyanogenMod, MIUI, Virtuous Quattro, VillainROM, Open Kang Project, Replicant).
Modified versions of Android (also called "firmware" or "custom firmware") are created to:
removing Google services from the android device (for example, such as data synchronization) - to ensure the localization of user data only on the android device - excluding the possibility of transmitting identification information (IMEI, phone number, GPS coordinates, etc.) to servers Google;
faster and more frequent (in comparison with the manufacturers of the devices themselves) provision of new versions of Android OS. It is not uncommon for a manufacturer to stop supporting a model that seemed outdated or unprofitable to them, and users who want to see new functions have to turn to the works of enthusiasts, although many systemically outdated phones have the ability to update further (Nexus One is a prime example).
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addition of android-firmware with new settings and functions. Such as support for FLAC Lossless Audio, the ability to store downloaded applications on a MicroSD card (for Android up to version 2.2), etc.
To flash an android device, you need root access (this is called rooting), which gives you more control over the system and over the default applications. You do not need to unlock the bootloader for root access (an unlocked bootloader allows you to boot two or more OSs on the device). Modified firmware allows users of older phones to use applications that are available only for newer releases, increase stability, speed and often get rid of manufacturer bugs.
All manufacturers of android devices initially block root access in hardware (and the possibility of flashing), motivating this with the desire to protect the user from installing malware and protect the device from damage. However, due to the massive use of complex hacker techniques to bypass this protection, manufacturers were forced to meet halfway and create the possibility of official unlocking of phones (Sony Ericsson - Unlocking the boot loader service, HTC - Unlocking Your Bootloader service). The risk associated with a possible breakdown of the phone during the unlocking process is transferred to the user, who, if the bootloader is unlocked, agrees to the terms indicating an early loss of the phone warranty. And some manufacturers went even further and did everything so that an advanced user could not only install a different firmware, but also create his own (detailed instructions for replacing firmware, software, documentation on the architecture of the software platform, the original firmware code, etc.) ) and support the development of alternative firmware (Sony Ericsson sponsors CyanogenMod). In addition, this (Sony Ericsson initiative) eliminates the need to use untested hacking tools for the flashing process (eg for HTC).
In the conflict of interests of the two parties (manufacturers of the phones themselves, together with Google and users), the following motivation can be traced:
manufacturers want to install adware applications on phones that cannot be removed without rooting;
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Google wants to collect as much information about the user as possible: not only personal data such as email addresses or the history of visiting sites, but also information about the user's movement (GPS coordinates or, with the GPS receiver turned off, the location of the device according to signals from cell towers) in real time which led to legal proceedings.
manufacturers do not seek to promptly update the operating system and after about six months they stop supporting the product, thereby forcing buyers to switch to new phone models.
On September 24, 2009, Google approached the CyanogenMod developers with a letter demanding the removal of closed-source parts of the system and applications (such as Market, GPS navigation, Maps, etc.) from the alternative firmware. As a result, "closed" applications were removed from the android version of CyanogenMod, and during the installation of CyanogenMod, the user has the opportunity to install the software package from Google or install alternative versions of the "closed" programs (alternative "Maps", etc.), which allowed dispute and provided the opportunity for users to be or not be free of Google applications.
Android development history
july - Google acquired Android Inc.
September 5 - The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) group of companies was officially announced to develop open standards for mobile devices. Currently, OHA unites 34 companies, including the largest cellular operators T-Mobile, mobile device manufacturers HTC, Intel, Sprint Nextel, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile, chip developers Broadcom, Marvell, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, SiRF, Texas Instruments, LG, Motorola, Samsung Electronics, as well as the global giant of the IT industry and one of the main inspirers of the alliance, Google. Simultaneously with the introduction of the OHA, the open Android mobile platform based on the Linux kernel was announced.
November 12 - The first version of the Android "Early Look" SDK was presented and offered for download.
September 23 - Google, together with mobile operator T-Mobile and Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, announced the first device based on the Android 1.0 platform - the T-Mobile G1 smartphone (HTC Dream).
The first full SDK 1.0, Release 1, has been released.
January 12 - Android 2.1 released. Some sources call this version "Flan", but it is part of the "Eclair" release.
may - Android 2.2 (FroYo) released
december - Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) released
Aug 15 - Google reaches agreement with Motorola Mobility's board of directors to buy telecom corporation for $ 12.5 billion.
The Droid and Roboto font families have been created specifically for the Android platform.
The name of each version, starting from 1.5, Android OS is the name of a dessert. The first letters of the names in the order of versions correspond to the letters of the Latin alphabet: 1.5 Cupcake ("cupcake"), 1.6 Donut ("donut"), 2.0 / 2.1 Eclair ("eclair" or "icing"), 2.2 Froyo (short for "frozen yogurt" ), 2.3 Gingerbread, 3.0 Honeycomb, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.1 / 4.2 Jelly Bean, 5.0 Key Lime Pie ( Lime pie), Lollipop (lollipop), Molasses (molasses) and Nougat (nougat) (future and / or unconfirmed versions are italicized).
The first two were the names of famous robots: 1.0 Astro ("Astro Boy") and 1.1 Bender ("Futurama"), but they were changed to desserts due to copyright.
As of February 2011, Android devices were in the lead in the list of the most popular smartphones in the UK, leaving behind the iPhone 4 with iOS. According to experts, this is the first step of the Android OS towards global leadership in the mobile operating system market.
The official Android websites still do not specify the minimum hardware requirements for running the operating system (there are only hardware requirements for an Android development kit).
On the official Android website at the bottom left, if you hover the cursor over the robot, it performs different movements, and when pressed, it waves its hand.
In Android 1.6, the developers added the Native Development Kit, which allows you to write your own low-level modules for the system in C / C ++, relying on standard linux libraries. Although, for example, the standard C library on the Android platform, known as Bionic, is just not standard and fully compatible with libc.
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To access Google Play and other Google services, you must use proprietary applications that the phone manufacturer has the right to install on the phone only after signing a contract with Google.
Android competitors have criticized the platform, accusing it of excessive fragmentation that creates obstacles to developers. Google denied all allegations, stating that there were no such problems, but nevertheless released a tool to overcome fragmentation problems.
There has been criticism for Google's decision not to make the Android 3.0 Honeycomb publicly available, which is only available to members of the Open Handset Alliance or upon individual request after the agreement is signed. Google motivates this by the unavailability of the platform and a measure to prevent its careless implementation.
Richard Stallman stated that “everything is simple and clear: with the exception of the Linux kernel, Android 3 is non-free software” and “while Android phones are not as bad as Apple or Windows smartphones today, they cannot be said to be respect your freedom. " According to Google, closed source Android 3.0 is a temporary measure, but even after the release of version 4, the source of 3.0 was not open.
According to Lookout Security Mobile, about a million US dollars were stolen from Android smartphone users in 2011 alone.
On October 21, 2008, the OHA alliance published the source code for the Android platform. The release included the entire Android stack: the operating system, and middleware, and the main final applications written in Java. The total size of Android source code was 2.1 GB. The "Preferred License" for Android source code is the Apache License 2.0. After the release of Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the president of the mobile division of Google Andy Rubin announced that the opening of the source code of the new version of the system would be delayed due to the fact that the system was ill-prepared to run on communicators and requires significant optimizations. This decision was criticized by analysts: for example, the columnist for ZDNet Christopher Dawson called the move Google disappointing. But, according to the promises made by the company, Google opened the source codes for the next version of the system in the fall of 2011 - Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Android devices
The first device to run Android was the HTC Dream smartphone (officially launched by T-Mobile under the name T-Mobile G1) developed by HTC, which was unveiled on September 23, 2008. Numerous announcements from other smartphone makers soon followed on to release Android-based devices. With the release of Android version 3 (Honeycomb), targeted at tablets, more and more manufacturers began to announce the release of tablets on this platform. Also, Google, in cooperation with various giants of the mobile industry, produces its own devices in the "Google Nexus" series. These devices are the first to receive updates to new versions.
In addition to smartphones and tablets, the Android operating system is also installed on other devices. So, at the end of 2009, the first photo frame working on Android appeared on sale. In June 2011, the Italian company Blue Sky announced the release of i'mWatch smart watches running Android OS. In August 2012, Nikon introduced the world's first camera, which also runs on Google's platform. The already mentioned series "Google Nexus" contains not only smartphones and tablets, but also the Nexus Q media player running on Android.
In addition, enthusiasts have ported Android to a number of well-known devices, including, for example, Windows Mobile smartphones HTC Touch Dual and HTC TyTN II, on which Android was launched in emulation mode. Full porting was also carried out to devices such as Internet tablets running on Maemo - Nokia N810 and Nokia N900 (a port called Nitdroid) - and to smartphones Nokia N9 running on the MeeGo platform and HTC HD2 running on the operating system Windows Mobile, on which the Android OS can run from both a microSD card and internal NAND memory. At the same time, the installed system has full, not particularly limited functionality. In addition, there is a successful experience of installing Android on some Apple devices - iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad using a special program called Openiboot, which is designed to run various operating systems on these devices, including Android. Preliminary firmwares with limited functionality appear on devices running the Bada operating system. Koolu not only ported Android to the Neo FreeRunner, but also built its business selling these smartphones with a pre-installed Google mobile platform. The first official and public beta release of the Android port on Koolu's Neo FreeRunner took place in December 2008. Also Android is ported to x86 architecture.
Sources
Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, WikiPedia
android.com - Android site
proandroid.net - Android Applications
youhtc.ru - Everything for NTS phones
