Rumours that Google was about to get into smartphones went viral when the search giant bought a small mobile software company called Android Inc in 2005.
Few at the time could have predicted that it would take just six years for the result of this union to eclipse arch-rival Apple as the world's dominant mobile operating system.
In November 2007, Google released the first look to developers of the new operating system, complete with some unseen elements. These included multiple home screens with widgets you could move around the screen, cloud-based contact systems, and interaction with a wide range of Google services (such as Gmail and Calendar) from one simple log-in.
However, it wasn't until late the following year that the first phone to run the new operating system appeared. The T Mobile G1 was a pretty basic device with no headphone port and a chunky slide-out keyboard.
Android 1.1
A few months was all it took for a few necessary features to begin to make their way onto the Android operating system - namely fixes to things like the alarm clock, Google's popular Gmail service, new mapping applications and, most importantly, paid applications in tie Android Market, enabling Google to start making some money from a portal that Apple was already milking for all it was worth.
Up until now, there was very little for the consumer to get excited about when it came to Android, apart from the very few that picked up the T-Mobile G1. That all changed with the first dessert- flavoured release in April 2009.
With the release of the HTC Magic, the world had its first keyboard-less Android device, and with it came on screen keys,enabling you to enter text easily. Recording through a camcorder was also included, Bluetooth A2DP for wireless music streaming and animated screen transitions to really make Android look like a contender to the iPhone.
Nearly six months later, and the first major overhaul of the Android system was unveiled by Google - and it was so good that a number of devices are still running the platform today.
With this launch came an improved Android Market experience to make it easier to find applications, an enhanced camera and gallery and vastly improved voice search to let you flick through the phone and dial friends using only the power of your vocal cords.
Higher screen resolutions were also included as part of the upgrade, giving rise to the sumptuous WVGA (800 x 480) screens that make up a vast range of high end smartphones today.
More crucially, it brought speed improvements to the OS that meant users no longer wanted to throw their phone at a wall while waiting to write a text and later on even added free turn-by-turn navigation to rival dedicated sat-navs.
While Co nut really brought Android up to speed with the rest of the smartphone market, it was still lacking in a number of areas that users were beginning to bay for.
With Android 2.0 and 2.1 ( Eclair was released relatively soon after Donut and contained a number of bug fixes) that was rectified, bringing in elements like better contrast ratios fur backgrounds and HTML5 support.
The cool new element was the integrated contact support simply tap in your Facebook username and password and sync your friends up with your phone's address book for easy access. Work-beds were sorted too, as Exchange support finally arrived without the need for a third party application, and Live Wallpapers brought a touch of fun and movement to the back of your phone screen.
Other new toys, such as a digital camera zoom, LED flash support and Bluetooth 2.1 meant an enhanced multimedia and snapping experience, while tighter integration with the phone hardware meant faster speeds, too.
The first platform to be used on a tablet, we got our first taste of Frozen Yoghurt back in May 2010, which offered up a huge boost in general usage speed using something called a JIT (just in time) compiler.
Adobe Flash turned up with it, too, meaning a number of devices were now able to view the web as it was meant to be seen - something Apple still can't manage to this day. USB tethering and the ability to turn your phone into a Wi Fi hotspot meant users could finally free the data from their contract, and support for installing applications to memory cards meant applications could finally become more resource-intensive.
Little tweaks like being able to remotely wipe the phone and improved application launchers might not seem like much, but they contribute hugely to the gloss Android was finally starting to gain.
The latest smartphone release (although also used on many tablets), this brings support for extra high-res devices (WXGA and higher) but also a new user design and new colours to the icons. Oh, and the battery meter was now horizontal, rather than vertical - pivotal stuff.
Support for Near Field Communications, like the tech seen in your Oyster card, and a massively improved keyboard both showed the next gen capabilities of this platform and new integration for front-facing cameras as video calling became more prevalent.
With the release of devices such as the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play - with dedicated hardware buttons - audio, graphical and input enhancements for game developers were also included as a welcome means of helping to beef up Android's gaming prowess.
Android 3.0 Honeycomb
With the advert of Android tablets, a dedicated operating system was needed to keep up. With the introduction of Honeycomb, Android got just that, with a three dimensional desktop and revamped widgets designed to fit on larger, higher-resolution screens.
Mu.ti-pane viewing meant users could see emails both from their inbox and in full view at once and an integrated video chat client made seeing and speaking to your buddies at the same time much easier. Where previous iterations of Android had depended on physical keys, the new android d 3.0 OS did away with this, and offered new thumbnail multi-tasking to make flicking through programs much easier.
The main change was support for dual core devices, though, as this meant a new realm of power could be exploited without the huge drain on battery life. Although only residing on a couple of tablets at the moment, expect to see Honeycomb-powered devices making big waves over the next 12 months.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment