On September 23, 2008, Apple's founder and CEO Steve Jobs walked into the company as usual, only a year and a half after the launch of the original iPhone, this controversial product is like a huge rock rolling down a cliff, all the way to the mobile phone market "Little Stone Pool" came to a book burning pit.
In the face of the emergence of the iPhone, most media and users expressed appreciation for Apple's innovation, but also cautious about its prospects; However, by the official release date, the rush of sales that swept Apple and AT&T retail stores across the United States had already announced the birth of a miracle.
Some Apple enthusiasts dubbed the iPhone "Jesus Phone," and this religious fanaticism continues to this day. However, good business products always face endless competition. And this time, even Jobs, who created the Jesus Phone, exclaimed "Jesus Christ", because on this day, the first officially commercial Android smartphone - HTC Dream was released.
HTC Dream has a better known name: HTC G1. Image from MobilityArena
Years later, when asked by biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs still can't hide his anger at Android:
"If I need to, I'm going to use my last ounce of strength and all the $40 billion in cash in Apple's account to correct this evil," Jobs said. Because it is a thief, I will not hesitate to start a thermonuclear war."
Clearly, Jobs hated the sudden emergence of a competitor, and he firmly believed that Android had "stolen" his idea. At first glance, the Dream and the iPhone do have many similarities, such as touch-based operation and similar interface and button layout - although the Dream has more buttons on the front.
However, compared with the iPhone, the Dream is indeed closer to the familiar traditional mobile phone form, and the trackball and slide-by-side full keyboard with its own intimacy are like a microcosm of the good old days, even the Android 1.0 on it.
Tracing back to the roots, the original Android was not originally developed as an operating system for smartphones, and this story originated with a man who did not want to make smartphones from the beginning.
I want a robot
Andy Rubin was born into a middle-class family in New York on March 13, 1963. Among the Silicon Valley bigwigs we've introduced, Andy definitely has a textbook start: his father, Simon Rubin, is a psychologist with a smooth career and rising income, and although it is not a rich and white star and stripe in old American New York, it is at least a New Money with stars and stripes.
Once people have money, it is easy to pursue "pattern", and Andy's father is a person with pattern. In the 70s, when there were new inventions every second, watching all kinds of strange electronic products popular throughout the United States, old Simon, who had been showing people for more than ten years of heart disease, suddenly realized a truth: studying medicine cannot save Americans, and selling these bells and whistles makes money.
So, he opened a direct sales company, specializing in selling all kinds of electronic products that were popular at that time, the direct sales of goods at that time usually used sales catalogs as information release channels, and unpacked samples that had taken catalog photos could not be put on the shelves for sale, Simon gave these things to his son as toys, and Andy has since dealt with electronic components.
Andy Rubin, recognized as the "father of Android". Image courtesy of TechNews
If there was anything most popular with children in the seventies and eighties, robots were definitely one of them. Every day, Andy disassembles the toys his father gave him into parts and tries to assemble his own robot. These attempts failed, of course, but the obsession eventually led Andy to earn a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1986 and successfully enter Carl Zeiss as a robotics engineer at the age of 23.
If the story goes according to the normal course, then Andy, who loves robots, is likely to spend his life happily and contentedly working as a robotics engineer. However, a small episode at the age of 26 dramatically changed his fate: in 1989, Andy accidentally "rescued" a poor young man who was thrown out of the vacation house by his girlfriend due to a quarrel while on vacation in the British West Indies, during which Andy learned that the other party was called Bill Caswell, an Apple engineer.
With Bill's strong Amway and recommendation, Andy gave up the job Zeiss had arranged for him in Switzerland and joined Apple in 1990. At this time, Apple was controlled by John Sculley, the "sugar water seller", who was working on a cool new gadget called PDA.
Apple didn't stop working on the Newton device, and the project was halted after Jobs' return. Image courtesy of the National Museum of American History
After two years at Apple, Andy's handheld computing and communications equipment division was split into General Magic, where Andy and his colleagues tried to develop a handheld device that was smaller and more portable than a PDA, could be carried around, and provided round-the-clock support, as well as the mobile operating system Magic Cap.
This device form factor is often considered one of the predecessors of the smartphone, but unfortunately, the various technologies required for Pocket Crystal did not appear until the next 15 years, and Andy's concept machine was finally left with a little concept.
Soon, General Magic ceased to exist, and Andy entered Artemis after that, and the WebTV he helped develop was a great success, Artemis was acquired by Microsoft in 1997, and Andy who entered Microsoft could have made a big difference until he gave Bill Gates a super hard job.
I made a robot
Tech company employees usually fish in a different way, and Andy is no exception. But compared to simple means such as hanging a small mirror at the workstation, the global boss key, or the "pretend to be busy" screensaver, his method is full of geek.
Using the technology and resources at hand, Andy built an internet-controlled wheeled robot equipped with a real-time webcam and microphone designed to monitor movements around him, a small drone so effective that it roams the office every day.
Because of Andy's reputation, Microsoft colleagues did not take this little robot seriously from the beginning, and they used it as an electronic pet in the office, occasionally "teasing" it. Over time, almost everyone forgot that the robot was remotely controlled via the Internet.
It wasn't until one day in 1999, when the robot that had always been "disciplined" suddenly rampaged in the office, and Andy, who was supposed to control the robot, was working hard again that everyone realized that something was wrong. After some physical stops and inspections, Microsoft's security department came to a terrible conclusion: Andy's robot had been hacked.
Although the hack did little real damage — the other party didn't even know about the webcam and microphone on the robot — it still set off a wave of commercial espionage panic within Microsoft. Soon, Andy is told that the robot must be let go immediately, but when the turmoil intensifies, Andy himself has to roll up and leave.
Leaving Microsoft, Andy opened a robotics store in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley, and continued handheld device development with two friends, Joe Britt and Matt Hershenson. Initially, they wanted a digital camera that could take pictures and upload them to the web, but over time, the concept eventually included full Internet browsing and mobile phone functionality.
When the time came, the trio founded Danger and in 2002 released their most popular product, the Danger Hiptop (later renamed Sidekick) series, running Java-based DangerOS.
Hiptop was definitely the coolest handheld device at the time, and the architecture of DangerOS later became the basis for Android. Image courtesy of Nimble
Hiptop is hugely popular in the U.S. market, and the less business-oriented Hiptop clearly has more possibilities than the email-focused Blackberry smartphone. What's more, two little-known young men at the time saw its commercial value: Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The reason why the two Google founders fancy Sidekick is also simple: in addition to the product itself is amazing enough, Andy also set Google as the default search engine for Sidekick, which is impressive enough.
In 2003, Andy left Danger to found Android.
Me, robot
However, contrary to what people think, Andy did not go straight to the smartphone after leaving Danger, and like other smartphones in the early days, the market was not ready for the Hiptop, and despite its popularity, it still could not shake the dominance of feature phones.
Andy approached Chris White, a former colleague of Artemis, who founded FotoFarm, a camera software company focused on bringing internet connectivity and application scalability to the rapidly growing digital cameras.
Later, at Chris's suggestion, the two changed the name of FotoFarm to Android, a name derived from Andy's nickname at Apple and a top-level domain he held for a long time.
When their work was picking up, Andy invited two of his friends, Nick Sears and Rich Miner, to his office in Palo Alto to sell them his camera software.
The two men reacted surprisingly consistently, suggesting that Andy's company make phones instead of cameras for a simple reason: As more phone makers focus on camera features, sales of digital cameras are declining and will encounter Waterloo at some point.
Andy failed to continue his camera software, but as camera functionality became more and more important on smartphones, he arguably created the most important camera operating system ever made – just in circles. Image from NotebookCheck
Thinking of Hiptop, Andy did not immediately follow the advice of his two friends, and it was not until late 2004, when Android still failed to get a significant investment in camera software, that he called Nick and Leach.
In early 2005, Nick and Leach joined Android as co-founders and began customizing business plans for mobile operating systems; That same year, Google acquired Android for $50 million, which was probably the most valuable deal Google ever made.
Today, Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world. According to Statista, as of Q4 2022, Android's market share has reached 71.8%, much higher than iOS and other competitors.