Android History

Android Inc., was founded in Palo Alto, California in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White. According to Andy Rubin, Android Inc. was established to develop smart mobile devices that could better understand the preferences and the location of the owners. The initial intention of the company is to develop an advanced operating system for digital cameras. When Andy Rubin realized that the market share for digital camera device is not large enough, then he change the company's goal to make a smartphone operating system that will compete with Symbian and Windows Mobile. Andy Rubin had run out of money. Steve Perlman, a close friend of Rubin, giving the sum of $ 10,000 in cash in an envelope. But Perlman refusing to get a share in the company.

Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17, 2005. The key employees of Android Inc., -those are Andy Rubin, Rich Miner and Chris White, was brought into the Google company after the acquisition. At that time not many people know about the company Android Inc. But with this purchase, many assumed that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market. At Google, the team led by Rubin, developed a mobile device platform using the Linux kernel. Google promised to the hardware and software partners, that the platform is being developed is open (open source).

The speculation about Google's intention to enter the mobile communications market continues to grow until December 2006. An initial prototype with code "Sooner" has similarities with BlackBerry phones. Where this prototype has a physical keyboard without touch screen technology. Google then further develop this platform to incorporate touch-screen technology in order to compete with other devices when it is already present such as LG Prada in 2006 and Apple iPhone in 2007.

On 5 November 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technology companies including Google, hardware manufacturers such as HTC, Sony and Samsung, wireless operators such as Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, announce their presence, with the goal to develop open standards for mobile devices. On that day, Android Operating System was inaugurated as their first product, a mobile device platform built on the Linux kernel version 2.6.25. On October 22, 2008, HTC launched HTC Dream, a first commercial smartphone that running Android.

In 2010, Google began to launch a series of Nexus smartphones and tablets running the Android operating system, but the hardware was made by partners. Smartphone Nexus One, Nexus series first released, made by HTC as Google manufacturing partner. The next Nexus series is built on the latest version of Android smartphones including Nexus 2 that is made by Samsung, Nexus 3 smartphone made by Samsung, smartphone Nexus 5 is made by LG and the Nexus 7 tablet made by Asus. Google regularly release a series of Nexus mobile phones and tablet as their Android device flagship. On March 13, 2013, Google CEO Larry Page announced in a blog post that Andy Rubin had moved from the Android division to take on new projects at Google. He was replaced by Sundar Pichai, the Chrome division head who develop the Chrome operating system.

Since 2008, Android has gained a number of updates that have been gradually increasing the stability of the operating system, adding new capabilities and fix errors / bugs from previous releases. Every major releases are named in alphabetical order. For example, version 1.5 Cupcake followed by 1.6 Donut. On June 19, 2014, KitKat Android version 4.4.4 was released just as updates to fix security. On November 2014, the latest version of the Android operating system, the Android version 5.0 Lollipop, available only for certain devices.

From 2010 until 2013, Hugo Barra served as spokesman for the team of Android products, which represent Android both at a press conference as well as at the Google I / O. Google I / O is an annual conference organized by Google's developer. Hugo Barra's involvement in the development of Android covers the entire Android ecosystem of software, hardware, as well as other related products such as Google Now and Google Voice Search. In 2013, Hugo Barra leaving Android team at Google to join Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphones manufacturer.

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