Okay Geek Farm
Google Android - A Brief History
Daniel Carey
Whether you like it or not, Android is currently the hottest mobile operating system available. Originally announced on November 5th 2007 Google’s Android led to the establishment of the Open Handset Alliance, a confederacy of 47 -- hardware, software and telecommunication vendors, publicising open standards for mobile devices. Filing Android under the Apache Licensing Service led to the implementation, integration and development of proprietary software as well as open-source software allocation. As of February 16th 2010 Google proudly announced that approximately 60,000 android-based handsets were shipping daily.
More after the Break
History:
In July of 2005, international conglomerate Google acquired a small start-up company by the name of… yep you guessed it Android. Acquired in the corporate buy out was none other than Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White. The blogging community knew very little at the time, however, they all presumed that Google had something big in the works. (I doubt anyone knew just how big Google’s plan would be in the long run).
Led by Andy Rubin, the team began developing the now popular platform off of a Linux based kernel. During its development, the operating system was pitched to several United States cellular-phone carriers as a means of selling a fully customisable, updateable OS.
Speculation of Google’s presence in the mobile space began to grow, with reports via BBC and the Wall Street Journal. Several print media outlets began noting Google and their secretive development of a “Google-branded handset”. – Whilst this speculation was correct, little did the general public know just how dominate Google would become in the mobile space. The long awaited release of Google’s first handset – The HTC Dream/G1 – came true on October 22nd 2008.
Marketed, as an updatable operating system was an understatement. Between it’s release to present alphanumeric time, consumers have seen four updates/releases; with desert flavours ranging from Cupcake, Donut, Éclair and FroYo.
Functions:
Google’s Android has proved its-self as a viable alternative to the already available Apple iPhones of the world. With features ranging from the most basic of SMS to the integrated Android Marketplace, Google was able to gain a momentous epoch in the mobile market.
Android currently boasts support for various handset layouts, these being: QVGA, VGA, WVGA and FWVGA displays. In case that doesn’t float your boat, there’s also support for both 2D and 3D graphics, based off of the OpenGl ES API. Android also boasts support for GSM/EDGE, CDMA, EV-DO, Bluetooth and WiFi, to name a few.
In the current mobile phone era, media support is most prevalent. This is especially noticeable if you’re coming from an Apple iPhone. With this in mind Google decided that media support would also have to be prevalent. Android’s current build provides support for:
- H.263/H.264 in either 3GP of MP4
- MPEG-4 SP
- AMR
- AMR-WB in 3GP
- AAC
- HE-AAC in either 3GP or MP4
- MP3
- MIDI
- OGG
- WAV
- JPEG
- PNG
- GIF
- BMP
Whilst essentially Google’s media player is existentially abysmal we’ve got to congratulate them for offering some form of media playback at such an early stage in the game.
Next to Apple’s App Store, Google currently holds the second largest Smartphone application store… the Android Market. Whilst the Android Market is a collaborative store for third party developers/vendors, Google on occasion has contributed. The most noticeable Google contributed applications being Google Voice (which is now heavily integrated in newer builds of Android), SkyMap, Places Directory and Google Goggles (an image based search engine). Other noticeable applications for Android are: Backgrounds, Facebook, Shazaam and WeatherBug.
Similar to the likes of Windows Mobile 6.x, Google’s Android holds support for full-fledged multitasking. (An added bonus when compared to the iPhone, however, this can prove problematic for the none tech savvy.) Android owners will quickly learn that holding down the home button allows for a dead easy way to switch between open applications. Google’s OS is generally efficient enough, especially when allocating resources, however, background tasks/applications can often lessen overall performance and battery life. To combat this issue Android owners are blessed with Advanced Task Killer -- An application-file-killer, hell-bent on solely killing running applications. Whilst killing tasks is generally in the mindset of antiquated operating systems i.e. Symbian and Windows Mobile, quitting applications on your Android device will prove to be a godsend in the long run.
To recapitulate, Google’s Android is currently one of the hottest mobile operating systems on the market. With handsets ranging from HTC’s Nexus One, to Motorola’s Droid your bound to find a flavour that suits your particular needs... but hey if not, then you could always wait for the release of the iPhone 4G or Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series.
