There is a 72% chance that your smartphone is running Android, and over the past five
years, this number has only gone up.
That’s why today we’ll be exploring one of the most important parts of the Google
empire: Android.
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Although the Android OS became popular after 2010, the story behind it goes way back to
1989, not in Silicon Valley but in the Cayman Islands.
It is there that Andy Rubin, a robotics engineer working in Switzerland, had gone on vacation.
Early one morning, he stumbled across a man sleeping in a chair outside; as it turns out
one of Apple’s leading software engineers had just been kicked out of his beach house
by his girlfriend.
Andy was compassionate and gave the man a place to stay; in return, he was offered a
job at Apple, right around the time when the Macintosh had peaked in popularity.
Thanks to this lucky break, Andy kicked off a great career in Silicon Valley, first by
developing the Macintosh Quadra for Apple, and then joining General Magic, the company
now famous for developing the predecessor of the modern smartphone.
While working at these companies Andy would always develop his own side projects.
They usually involved him building crazy robots, and eventually people around the office started
calling Andy the Android.
Interestingly enough, one of Andy’s colleagues at General Magic was Tony Fadell, the man
who would later go on to create both the iPod and the iPhone.
Although General Magic’s idea was truly innovative, it was at least a decade ahead
of its time, which is why the company eventually went bust.
Andy never gave up on the idea of the smartphone, however, and in 1999 he and his engineering
buddies decided to start their own company to pursue that dream.
What they eventually developed was the Hiptop, a phone with a keyboard that could wirelessly
connecting to the Internet.
While not innovative from a hardware standpoint, the Hiptop was nevertheless a pioneer:
You see, back in 2002 mobile phones were still considered mostly a business tool, and nobody
had made any serious effort to market them to teenagers.
The Hiptop’s design was the perfect blend of instant messaging, Web access and convenience,
but Andy ran into a problem before he could even start production.
Back then the mobile phone industry was almost exclusively controlled by carrier companies.
They were the ultimate gatekeepers for any phone manufacturer, because without them,
phones were basically useless.
Carries had power over nearly every aspect of mobile phones, from how much they would
cost to how they would be marketed.
The Hiptop seemed like a very risky investment, so Andy struggled getting any carrier on board.
He eventually had to strike an extremely unfavorable deal with the only company that was even marginally
interested, T-Mobile.
Not only did they demand a large percentage of all the sales, they also got to rebrand
Andy’s phone, releasing it as the T-Mobile Sidekick.
It was somewhat successful, but it was mostly used by urban rich kids so it’s popularity
was limited and Danger Inc didn’t really get any public exposure out of it.
Nevertheless, the phone did get into the hands of the right person: Larry Page, the co-founder
of Google.
Now, back then Google wasn’t nearly as big as it is today; in fact, it was still behind
the likes of AOL Search and Yahoo.
That’s why Larry was pleasantly surprised when he discovered that the default search
engine for Andy’s phone, was Google.
Larry saw huge potential in the idea of the smartphone and wanted Google to make one of
their own, but he knew that the carriers would never allow an outsider to steal their profits.
Larry felt it was still too early for Google to challenge the carriers, and so he waited.
As luck would have it, over the next three years, Andy would develop a new business model
that could finally end the carrier monopoly.
His previous venture, Danger Inc, was like any regular manufacturer, relying on hardware
sales to make its money.
This came into direct conflict with carriers, who wanted their clients to use the same phone
for as long as possible to prevent them from switching to competitors.
Andy figured out a brilliant way of ending this conflict of interest.
Instead of relying on hardware sales, he would give out his software for free, earning money
by taking a percentage of the carrier service fees.
Andy knew firsthand just how difficult it was to be a developer for phone apps back
then, so he wanted to make his operating system open source as well, giving everyone the chance
to use it and build applications for it.
He combined these two ideas into a new company, which he called Android, in 2004, and while
the rest of the world laughed at his idealism, Google knew that this was what they had been
waiting for.
Just a year later, when Android still had nothing more than a barely-working demo, Google
bought the whole company for $50 million.
Even then, Google’s motives were clear: they anticipated the rise of mobile computing
and wanted a dedicated platform through which to distribute their services.
Andy and his team were brought along to do just that, and they even got their own building
at the Googleplex.
Over the next two years they would develop their revolutionary idea into a fully functional
operating system.
But that was just the first step: they still needed to design a phone the OS would run
on and to partner with a carrier to actually sell it.
Finding someone to build the phone was easy enough, but getting a carrier to willingly
give up their control of the phone market was difficult to say the least.
In fact, every single carrier Google contacted turned them down.
Then, on January 9, 2007, Apple unveiled the iPhone.
Unsurprisingly, the Android office was in chaos the very next day.
While they had experimented with touchscreen technology, nobody had imagined that Apple
would be fully integrating it into their phone.
Over the next nine months, Andy’s team completely redesigned their product, adding touchscreen
functionality on top if its pre-existing keyboard.
The release of the iPhone, however, actually helped Android.
You see, Apple weren’t nearly as determined to break up the carrier monopoly Andy was
so eager to destroy.
Steve Jobs had just gone with the flow, signing an exclusive deal with AT&T to get the iPhone
out as fast as possible.
But once the other carriers saw just how popular the iPhone was, they started to panic, fearing
that AT&T would come to dominate the smartphone market thanks to its initial lead.
This fear is what eventually convinced T-Mobile to sell Android’s first phone, the HTC Dream.
Unfortunately, it would take Andy’s team another year before they could finally release
it, giving Steve Jobs plenty of time to grab market share.
But Google did not come unprepared.
They used this extra time to form an alliance with various carriers, software developers
and manufacturers.
Apple’s deal with AT&T convinced everyone that they had to work together.
Steve Jobs threatened to destroy their entire business models, which made Android’s open
source offer much more lucrative.
Because Android wasn’t a closed-off system like iOS, carriers and manufacturers could
remain confident that Google wouldn’t abuse its power over the Android platform.
Thus, in November 2007, the Open Handset Alliance was born.
The crusade against Apple would not be easy, however, and by mid 2009 iOS already held
40% of the smartphone market.
A big chunk of its market share came from the dying SymbianOS, which was the operating
system of older phones.
In the midst of Symbian’s decline, Android scored its first big victory: the Motorola
Droid.
By the time of its release in 2009, the carriers were so scared of fading into irrelevance
that Verizon personally spend $100 million marketing the Droid as an iPhone-alternative.
From then on, the Android OS quickly reached mass market adoption.
Apple barely made an attempt to stop it because their model of high prices and exclusivity
was the polar opposite of the cheapness and variety of Android.
By May 2010 Android had already surpassed iOS in market share, and by the end of the
year it was the world’s most popular mobile operating system, a title it still holds to
this day.
Andy oversaw the first 18 versions of Android and is likely responsible for the tasty trend
of naming the different releases after popular sweets.
He did eventually leave Google in 2014.
Today he runs his own incubator in Silicon Valley and also has a billion-dollar smartphone
company that just started shipping its first phone, the Essential PH1, that is so far getting
mixed reviews.
Even without Andy, Android remains the dominant mobile operating system on the planet, despite
facing sharp criticism from all sides on a variety of issues.
Things like security flaws and malware issues haven’t hindered Android’s popularity.
As of August 2017, Android controls 72.7% of the mobile phone market, with over 2 billion
active users every single month.
Right now iOS is the only thing that stands between it and monopoly, and Android is showing
no signs of slowing down.
In fact, its latest release, 8.0 Oreo, is Android’s most ambitious one yet.
With an improved notification system, tighter background process control and a legitimate
solution to its fragmentation issue, so far Oreo is being praised all around.
At this point, Android can no longer be called just a mobile operating system.
Besides phones and tablets, Oreo will also be integrated in cars, watches, TVs, VR headsets
and possibly numerous other devices thanks to a version dedicated to the “Internet
of Things”.
Suffice to say, things are looking bright for Android, and considering just how crucial
of a part they are in the Google war machine, they’ll likely remain on top for a long
time.
Now, the technical innovations that made Android possible back in the early 2000s aren’t
things that are easy to learn.
All the science and math that went into creating Android may seem difficult to get into, but
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