14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday we talked about Russia’s growing concerns related to the mobile monopoly Google has instated with its Android operating system, which are based on true facts.
The most recent numbers provided by research firm comScore reveal that in the US Android holds 52.1% dominion over the market, while Apple is steadily catching up with it, grabbing 41.7% of the pie. These statistics cover three months ending in December 2014.
The US is known as being a market with a high affinity for Apple products, but globally Android still rules supreme.
But how did Android manage to rise to such glory and how did its story start?
What was the first Android smartphone?
Well, for those of you who harbor an interest for mobile history, in what follows we’re going to take you back to when the first Android smartphone was launched.
Interestingly enough, HTC is the company behind the very first handset to run on the Android platform. Google continues to work with the company to this day and a few months ago the search giant rolled out the Nexus 9 tablet, built in partnership with the Taiwanese device maker.
The HTC Dream (or Google G1) launched back in 2008 under the T-Mobile banner. It arrives with a 3.2-inch display with 320 x 480 pixel resolution (180 ppi) and a Qualcomm MSM7201A clocked at 528 MHz and Adreno 130 GPU on the inside.
The handset takes advantage of 192MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM, which is pretty amazing compared to today’s beefed up standards.
HTC Dream also enjoys the services of a 3.15MP primary camera with autofocus, but there was no selfie centric camera yet.
Other specifications include microSD, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and miniUSB.
The HTC Dream had a QWERTY keyboard which customers could make use of by sliding out the display.
Android's reception was ambivalent
Google and Open Handset Alliance developed Android as a way to compete with major smartphone platforms of the time, including Symbian, BlackBerry OS and iOS.
The handset offers a customizable graphical user interface, integration of Google services including Gmail and a notification system that allowed users to see the most recent messages from apps.
An ancestor of the Google Play Store was also present onboard, in the form of the so-called Android Market, which allows users to download additional apps.
Interestingly enough, Android’s debut was a shaky one, as the OS was heavily criticized for the lack of third-party software and certain functionalities, when compared to other more established platforms.
However, its open nature, notifications system and heavy integration with Google’s services were considered pluses which ultimately drove it into glory.
