The Origin and Rise of Android: From a Small Startup to a Global Mobile OS

Google's early hiring was notoriously selective, targeting elite university graduates with top‑level math, programming, and algorithm skills. Yet a group of under‑qualified candidates bypassed this process and joined Google, eventually creating the world’s most popular mobile operating system.

The story begins twenty years ago when Google, riding the wave of services like Search, Gmail, and Maps, faced a looming mobile revolution sparked by devices such as the BlackBerry. Recognizing three dominant mobile platforms—Symbian, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Mobile—Google decided to acquire a tiny startup that originally built a camera operating system.

This startup, with only eight employees (some without high‑school diplomas), had a simple Java‑based demo system. Google saw its potential for an open‑source mobile OS and acquired it, naming the project Android .

Android’s early development team was assembled from three pioneering companies:

Danger (1999), which built an early smartphone platform with an app store.

Be (1995), creator of the multimedia‑focused BeOS.

WebTV (1995), which produced an internet‑enabled set‑top box.

Choosing Java as the primary language was strategic: it was the most popular language worldwide, had free IDEs like Eclipse and NetBeans, and attracted a large developer base. However, Android did not use the standard Java bytecode; instead, it defined its own bytecode executed by the custom Dalvik virtual machine, which employed a register‑based architecture for lower memory usage and better performance on mobile devices.

Google also built its platform on the open‑source Apache Harmony libraries, later leading to a legal dispute with Oracle over Java API usage.

In November 2007, Google announced the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a coalition of hardware manufacturers, carriers, and chip makers—including HTC, Sony, Samsung, Motorola, Qualcomm, and many others—committed to developing Android.

After months of secrecy, the Android SDK was released, accompanied by a $10 million Android Development Challenge to attract developers. Judges were even shipped laptops pre‑loaded with the SDK to test the 1,788 submitted apps.

The first commercial Android device, the HTC Dream (also known as the T‑Mobile G1), launched in October 2008. It featured a physical keyboard, customizable UI, Gmail integration, and the Android Market for app distribution. Though its sales were modest (about 1 million units in six months), it proved that Android could run on real hardware.

Google’s relentless development pace led to rapid releases: within a year, four Android versions were shipped. Motorola’s Droid (2009) became the first breakout Android phone, selling 250 000 units in its first week, followed by Samsung’s Galaxy series, HTC’s Desire, LG’s Optimus, and Sony’s Xperia, among others.

By 2010, Android had entered the Chinese market, powering devices from Xiaomi (MIUI), Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei, further accelerating its global dominance.

Today, Android powers billions of devices worldwide, surpassing iOS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile to become the world’s leading mobile operating system.

References: https://corecursive.com/android-with-chet-haase/ https://www.thesmilinghippo.com/gr/en/blog/google-project-restart-android/ 《Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System》