Google announced Android, its mobile operating system in late 2007. Since then, the operating system has come a long way from being developed by Android Inc. to now being developed by the Open Handset Alliance, which is led by Google. The announcement which was made on November 5, did not really shock the tech world. Geeks all over the world were either anticipating a Google Phone or Google’s greater participation in the mobile world. With Google’s announcement of Android they weren’t disappointed either.
Hardware
Well, for the operating system to run, it needs hardware and the first Android device to be available commercially was the HTC Dream (also known as T-Mobile G1) which came out on October 22, 2008. Featuring a sliding QWERTY, and a capacitive touchscreen, it was under intense “pressure” since it had to showcase the world what Android was really capable of, to show it was capable of taking on mighty operating systems such as Symbian, Mac OS, Windows Mobile or BlackBerry OS.
And did it pass the test?

Yes, as after a month of its launch, on December 9, 2008, it brought major partners to the Open Handset Alliance such as ARM, Atheros, Asus, Garmin, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Vodafone. This partnership has already started to bear fruits as Sony Ericsson has plans to launch a number of handsets running Android next year.

The potential of Android has just started to show, as it has matured from version one to version two, featuring a number of wide changes, such as the ability to record video, improvement of the User Interface and the User Experience, improvements in hardware speed, and features such as directly uploading videos to sites such as YouTube, beside quashing many bugs.

The best examples to showcase Android’s progress are devices like Motorola Droid from Verizon and HTC Hero, alongwith other similar devices.

Android is not just confined to mobiles only, it has already found its way on e-book readers such as Nook, Portable Music Players, GPS devices, laptops, netbooks.

Software
One major advantage with Android is that it is Open Source and runs on Linux kernel version 2.6. The source code of Android was released on October 21, 2008 and has since been available under the Apache License. This means that it is due to this only that Android has been available on such a wide range of devices. Companies can modify the code to suit their needs and satisfy the customer.

Graduating from version one to present doesn’t just mean that Android has only undergone hardware improvements. It has also undergone several software improvements like improvements in the touch keyboard of the phone, the addition of the Android Market, and the constant improvement of the Google experience which is essential to the Android experience.

Conclusion

The Google experience which the device promises courtesy of Android is one of the most important selling point of the device. Google has become interconnected to an average person’s life, with its services being extremely popular and Android promises to integrate this experience, for Google and the user’s own benefit.

Case in point, is the update of the navigations application, which was developed by Google, in Android’s version 2, has also become one of the most important selling points of Android. Users were till now used to paying for the GPS service until Google came and revolutionised the scene with its own navigation application which was available for free with Android.

To conclude, Android can become massively popular if it continues going along the path which it has set for itself.

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