14 DAY TRIAL // The never ending lawsuit between Apple and Samsung has now reached a point where third-party companies are called in to bring proofs in defense of one or the other.
For example, Samsung has recently called Google in its defense to show the ruling court how the Android platform started and that it did not copy Apple’s products.
Google was kind enough to offer its full support to Samsung and filed several interesting documents that revealed information about the Android operating system that we did not know until now.
The folks over at Recode have managed to get their hands on such documents that mention how Android was like before Apple announced its first iPhone device.
One of the most important information included in this draft is the fact that Android did not support touchscreens before Apple’s iPhone announcement.
In fact, Android did not support touchscreen input to be more precise, instead the document mentions that the first Android device was designed so that it would use physical buttons.
“The product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption. However, there is nothing fundamental in the products architecture that prevents the support of touchscreens in the future.”
The 2006 documentation also mentions that Android was based on Linux 2.6 at that time, but that it would also use Microsoft’s FAT32 file system.
That would have meant more money for the Redmond-based company in royalty fees, but after Apple’s iPhone announcement, Google’s view on its mobile platform changed completely and many technologies or “innovations” did not make it in the final version.
Since the moment the iPhone was announced and by the time the first smartphone powered by Android was released on the market, Google introduced lots of new features that now look like they may have been heavily inspired by Apple’s main product.
The first version of Android was not only supporting touchscreens, but multi-input touch was a requirement for any handset manufacturer that would want to put the mobile platform on its devices.
The documentation filed by Google also mentions that Android supported lots of the features that we now consider the defining traits for this platform, including widgets, removable storage, notifications, Google services, third-party apps support and many more.
For more details on how Android looked before Apple announced its first iPhone device, you can check out the PDF document embedded below. What do you think about Google’s sudden change in perspective regarding the Android OS?
Android Project Software Functional Requirements v 0.91 2006