How the original iPhone forced Google to completely rebuild Android

[AWilliams87]

The day Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone model (January 9th, 2007,) Google?s Android team, which had been secretly working on a smartphone for two years, took a ?kick in the stomach,? The Atlantic revealed. While Google knew, as everyone else also knew at the time, that Apple was working on a smartphone, the company ?just didn?t think it would be that good,? Ethan Beard, an early Android business development executive said. Watching the iPhone keynote on his way to a CES 2007 Android-related meeting in Las Vegas, Rubin reportedly stopped his car to see the entire performance Steve Jobs was putting on stage at the time. ?Holy crap,? he told a colleague, ?I guess we?re not going to ship that phone,? referring to the BlackBerry-like Android device his team was working on at the time.

 

?Sooner? was the codename of the first Android handset that never shipped because of the iPhone. The device was arguably ?more revolutionary than what had just been revealed in the iPhone,? the publication writes, but it was ?ugly,? featuring a traditional keyboard and a touch-less small display.

?As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted [an iPhone] immediately. But as a Google engineer I thought ?We?re going to have to start over?? Chris DeSalvo said. ?What we had suddenly looked so? nineties. It?s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.?

 

After working for two years on Sooner, which was supposed to ship in late 2007, the Android team had to refocus on a different device, a phone with a touchscreen that could compete with the iPhone, codenamed Dream at the time, and whose launch was pushed back to fall 2008.

 

?I never got the feeling that we should scrap what we were doing ? that the iPhone meant game over,? then Android?s project manager Erick Tseng said. ?But a bar had been set, and whatever we decided to launch, we wanted to make sure that it cleared the bar.?

 

Interestingly, Google managed to reach its goal with Android, which at the time the iPhone launched was making sure Microsoft would not do to the smartphone business what it did to the PC business before, and keep its search-based services relevant in the growing mobile ecosystem. ?It?s hard to relate to that [fear of Microsoft] now, but at the time we were very concerned that Microsoft?s mobile strategy would be successful,? Google?s Eric Schmidt said during his testimony in the Oracle vs Google copyright trial last year. Since then,Android became the most successful smartphone platform, by market share, with Apple still making most of the profits from the mobile business.

http://news.yahoo.com/original-iphone-forced-google-completely-rebuild-android-152547037.html

[Kalint]

Actual title: "How the original iPhone forced Google to completely rebuild Android"

 

Title for Neowin: "How the original iPhone forced Google to copy it"

 

Can we get this man a job as a writer here?!

[techbeck]

Shouldnt change the topic of a article you are posting.

[MikeChipshop Member]

Stupid title. come on man you've got to better than that title.

[AWilliams87]

Shouldnt change the topic of a article you are posting.

I didn't. That is the title of this post.

[techbeck]

I didn't. That is the title of this post.

 

No, this is the original title....

 

When posting articles from other sources, keep the same title.  People tend to comment if you dont. :)

[AWilliams87]

No, this is the original title....

Right. That's the title of the article. "copied it" is the title of this post.  :shifty:

 

EDIT to your EDIT: Fine. I'll take that into consideration next time.

[techbeck]

Right. That's the title of the article. "copied it" is the title of this post.  :shifty:

 

I edited my post.  When you change the title of the article you are quoting, it is frowned upon.  The change you made makes a big difference.

[ATLien_0]

Copy and Rebuild are different though. 

[User6060]

Copy and Rebuild are different though. 

very true

 

however they did rebuild to make the feature set in-line with what the iPhone was offering....

 

they weren't even thinking Touch-interface back in 2007. 

[AWilliams87]

[adrynalyne]

That is Eclair, Android 2.0 on that Nexus One.  The first handset is a prototype.  Think maybe you missed a phone or two in between?

 

Talk about cherry-picking.

 

Try this on for size as the first available android phone (well before the HTC Nexus One, heh):

 

[AWilliams87]

That is Eclair, Android 2.0 on that Nexus One.  The first handset is a prototype.  Think maybe you missed a phone or two in between?

 

Talk about cherry-picking.

 

Try this on for size as the first available android phone (well before the HTC Nexus One, heh):

 

What are you trying to imply here? That Android wasn't designed to copy the look and feel of the iPhone? Obviously the first one was a prototype. It is how they envisioned Android at the beginning: as a Blackberry clone. All of a sudden, the new Android features a dock at the bottom, similar to iOS and Mac OSX.

[xendrome]

<<Topic updated to correctly match the story/source>>

[Grinch]

What are you trying to imply here? That Android wasn't designed to copy the look and feel of the iPhone? Obviously the first one was a prototype. It is how they envisioned Android at the beginning: as a Blackberry clone. All of a sudden, the new Android features a dock at the bottom, similar to iOS and Mac OSX.

 

Who cares if they copied them? Almost every company copies their competitor's ideas or features and attempts to improve upon them. In return the consumer generally gets a more refined and polished product. 

[AJerman]

Who cares if they copied them? Almost every company copies their competitor's ideas or features and attempts to improve upon them. In return the consumer generally gets a more refined and polished product. 

We would be no where as a civilization if we didn't. Unfortunately people don't understand that. Prior to the iPhone's launch and wide acceptance, the most popular smart phone was a Blackberry, so would it not make sense that that's what they'd model it after? That was the popular form factor at the time. The iPhone is far from the first to use a full touch screen, Windows Mobile had been doing it for quite a while. What Apple did was make the form factor popular by polishing it up a little. The capacitive touch screen with a finger friendly UI was a major part of making the modern style smart phone popular. Was it new from Apple? Still no, but again they helped polish it up for the general public. Even dumb it down in a sense to gain acceptance from the less tech savvy.

 

So which form factor did Google settle on focusing on for Android, the dying Blackberry style smart phone with integrated keyboard, or the new and improved touch based smartphone like the iPhone. Thankfully Google isn't stupid and chose not to go with the form factor that was going out of style. Even then, they still had a slider keyboard on a lot of early Androids, which again was more like copying WinMo than iPhone.

 

This article pops up every few months whenever iPhone users aren't feeling quite smug enough with themselves. Nothing really of substance though, just perhaps an interesting read into the history and early product development of Android as compared to it's surrounding ecosystem.

[AJerman]

So who did Apple copy for their new Mac Pro design?

http://www.amazon.com/Glaro-Yorker-Funnel-Receptacle-Aluminum/dp/B006GSHDZK/ref=sr_1_28?s=storageorganization&ie=UTF8&qid=1387491691&sr=1-28 ??

[AWilliam87]

http://www.amazon.com/Glaro-Yorker-Funnel-Receptacle-Aluminum/dp/B006GSHDZK/ref=sr_1_28?s=storageorganization&ie=UTF8&qid=1387491691&sr=1-28 ??

Are you kidding? 

[adrynalyne]

I recall a certain Steve Jobs claiming they invented multitouch too....

 

Hell no, they copied it, or were at the very least inspired by other's work...

[vcfan]

snapples brand depends on their strategy, and their strategy has shown repeatedly that they will always end up owning only a small chunk of marketshare.

[Rippleman]

What are you trying to imply here? That Android wasn't designed to copy the look and feel of the iPhone? Obviously the first one was a prototype. It is how they envisioned Android at the beginning: as a Blackberry clone. All of a sudden, the new Android features a dock at the bottom, similar to iOS and Mac OSX.

I too suggest not to change titles. But, one things for sure here one must learn here is that the people here WORSHIP Android hardcore, saying ANYTHING that is not praise for it will get you immediately trampled upon. 

[adrynalyne]

I too suggest not to change titles. But, one things for sure here one must learn here is that the people here WORSHIP Android hardcore, saying ANYTHING that is not praise for it will get you immediately trampled upon. 

You get the same treatment from the Apple camp and Microsoft camp.

 

There is a term for these guys...fanboys?

 

All I said was that he cherry-picked before and after devices, when one was never released, and the second one, there were several android releases in between.

 

If you want to make a point, at least be honest about it.

[Nogib]

But Google didn't copy them.  Google isn't a hardware company.  Now if HTC decided to change the look and design of their first G1 Android phone that was entirely up to them.  Trying to compare a hardware company (Apple) to a software company (Google) is poor at best.  Not that these facts ever stop Apple fanboys from distorting them horribly like the linked article.

[techbeck]

What are you trying to imply here? That Android wasn't designed to copy the look and feel of the iPhone? Obviously the first one was a prototype. It is how they envisioned Android at the beginning: as a Blackberry clone. All of a sudden, the new Android features a dock at the bottom, similar to iOS and Mac OSX.

Who he hell cares. Think Microsoft or Apple would be where they are at if they didnt copy things either? Seriously, that is how things progress and how innovation progresses. Samsung is the one that took it way to far and where the copying comes in to play with Android really. Which Google doesnt have any say in Samsungs designs.

But anyway, people need to stop complaining about who copied who. It is really getting old.

[GodsMercyKings]

So wait, did or did they not copy? I'm seeing very conflicting responses.