Early History of Android
Mobile phones use a variety of operating systems, such as Symbian OS, Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, Mobile Linux, iPhone OS (based on Mac OS X), Moblin (from Intel), and many other proprietary OSs. So far, no single OS has become the de facto standard. The available APIs and environments for developing mobile applications are too restrictive and seem to fall behind when compared to desktop frameworks. In contrast, the Android platform promised openness, affordability, open source code, and, more important, a high-end, all-in-one-place, consistent development framework.
Google acquired the startup company Android Inc. in 2005 to start the development of the Android platform (see Figure 1–2). The key players at Android ...
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