back to article Google's Android celebrates fourth birthday

Android will be four years old on Sunday, September 23. Google launched the first public version of the mobile OS, in the form of the Android 1.0, on 23 September 2008, though its origins go back years before that. Google's Android statues Source: Quinn Dombrowski The operating system was created by a company called …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How can it celebrate a birthday when it's still not even finished?!

    1. Efros

      You could say that about most humans.

    2. MikeyWilko
      Thumb Down

      Knob.

      (obviously the door variety...heaven forbid that I swear!)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Something like this is never finished.

      It will improve every year, and unlike iOS, which has pretty much stayed the same, with the same boring list of icons, Android gets significantly better every year. No doubt because of all the big players contributing to it.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Something like this is never finished.

        unlike iOS, which has pretty much stayed the same

        It may help to actually try the device you're dissing. I have phones of all platforms (except the new Windows, too busy with other things right now) and it's a matter of personal taste. I cannot say that iOS has stood still, but they go more for usability changes, which are a bit more subtle (and they too get it wrong at times). I personally dislike Android, but I prefer not to make statements against it other than those based on facts..

        1. NoneSuch Silver badge

          Re: Something like this is never finished.

          Thanks for that. Nice to see opposition using polite debate and facts. The latter is the better one. ;-)

          Cheers.

    4. Bodhi
      WTF?

      Not finished, yet still more functional than the polished shiny shiny offering. I'd say if that was the case, when Google do finish it, Apple are shafted.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      unfinished unlike

      Windows, which is finished.

  2. frank ly
    Thumb Up

    I'll be out for Sunday lunch and a pint .....

    ... with my HTC Wildfire, HTC Incredible, Advent Vega and my Asus Transformer T300.

  3. James Hughes 1

    It's impressive

    Only four years and the end result is really rather good. There's a colossal amount of code in the Android codebase, and for the most part its all pretty good stuff.

    If only governmental projects could produce something that good in that space of time...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: It's impressive

      To be fair Android has been in development since at least 2003, when Android, Inc was founded making it really a 9 year development effort.

      Also much of the code was borrowed from Linux, Java, Webkit...

      1. Shagbag

        Re: It's impressive

        Agreed, but many probably forget (or don't even know) that Apple's iOS is based on BSD.

        1. Tom 38
          FAIL

          Re: It's impressive

          Agreed, but many probably forget (or don't even know) that Apple's iOS is based on BSD.

          That is because it's not. It reuses certain components from BSD (specifically FreeBSD), but the OS is not and never has been based on BSD.

          As an example, one of the things that is reused is part of the network stack. All versions of Windows also re-use the same parts of the same network stack, is Windows based on BSD?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It's impressive

          iOS is really not that based on BSD, it only has a BSD layer to provide a POSIX API. The kernel itself is XNU, which was developed at NeXT, a company founded by Jobs and later bought back by Apple. The frameworks also started in OSX and NeXT.

          1. Alain

            Re: It's impressive

            XNU itself is based on Carnegie Mellon's Mach, another open-source project.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's impressive

      You're right. It's defintiely *the* home of mobile malware and in such a short time. It's an achievement I think the android guys will ensure they hold onto for some time.

  4. Steve Foster
    Boffin

    Inquiring Minds Want To Know

    If v1.5 was Cupcake, what were the earlier A & B codenames?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

      "Apple" and "Blackberry"

      1. Steve Evans

        Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

        LOLZ!

        Just to be boring and serious for a second, the alphabetic confectionery names start with Cupcake. The previous version was known as "Petit Four".

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. JDX Gold badge

    I've been and seen the giant donut, a bit bizarre.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes, the fact that you've been the giant donut is indeed bizarre.

  6. Sam Machin

    Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

    The first 2 versions of Android were known as Astro & Bender,

    Andy Rubin is a big robot fan and wanted to name each version after a famous robot but most of those names are trademarks so Google Legal veto'd it, otherwise we'd have probably had C3PO instead of cupcake.

    The same reason why none of the current names will be brands otherwise it would have been Jello instead of JellyBean.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

      Not quite as the story goes...

      http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/17/a-history-of-pre-cupcake-android-codenames/

      1. Tigra 07
        Thumb Up

        Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

        The 2 Wikipedia articles perpetuating that myth will be repaired. Thanks for pointing that out as i have myself assumed it to be Astro and Bender and kept them in 2 articles.

        Thanks again dx!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

          Wikifiddlers basing articles on assumption rather than research of facts?

          I am shocked! Shocked!

          1. Tigra 07

            Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

            There was a citation already i place using Astro and Bender, it's clearly a myth though and now exposed it can be fixed.

    2. Shagbag

      Re: Inquiring Minds Want To Know

      Bender - only a non-Brit would call something that.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Got to feel sorry for Openmoko

    From memory, they had a handset out first.

    Lack of cash finished the project off, shame Google didn't contribute there rather than reinvent.

    Still, history is full of parallel development projects where one gets the momemntum first and wins.

    1. Lars Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Got to feel sorry for Openmoko

      Funny how (at least I) think there is always something to the name. What would you choose "Openmoko" or "Android". Most of the open source naming is rather "funny", Linux as an exception like Apache, for instance.

      Still if you want to check all the cell phones based on Linux, just have a look at www.linuxfordevices.com

      ,it goes a long way back.

      Incidentally, I still don't know if one should write Linux or linux.

  8. Anal Leakage

    Patently obvious

    This handset clearly shows that the touch paradigm ushered in by the iPhone was in fact an obvious, universal approach, because trackball.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Patently obvious

      Trackballs are handy for navigating through text and websites not optimised for touch on sub 4 inch screens. It's surprising the iPhone didn't have one, what with its tiny display and all.

      1. Neil Lewis

        Re: Patently obvious

        Agreed 100%. I had (and still have, boxed way) an early G1 and found the trackball very useful indeed. Even now, it's a bit of a pain using a touchscreen device on a web site with drop down menus; there is no easy way to differentiate a mouseover event from a tap or hold without a trackball.

      2. Anal Leakage

        Re: Patently obvious

        So why don't current Android handsets have that feature?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Patently obvious

          Because they have big enough screens that the trackball becomes redundant.

  9. Christian Berger

    Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn

    In my opinion there have been some problems with Android. Of course others will see those problems as advantages, so much of this is personal opinion and taste.

    1. No hardware abstraction below the kernel. This means every phone manufacturer _has_ to adapt the kernel to their hardware. There is no way of enumerating the hardware so a kernel with "all modules" isn't possible.

    2. That Java Davlik thingy. OK, the idea was that you could have software on multiple CPU platforms. However today much of the software running on Android loads binary CPU-dependent libraries.

    3. Weak standard compliance. OK there's worse, but it would be nice for Android to be X11 based. X11 is the quasi standard for GUI applications. Even if they desperately wanted to invent something new. They could have gone for something more innovative, something which would work independent of the programming language. For example something HTML-based.

    4. Tying everything into the Google Account. I don't want to have a Google Account just to use some features. Why didn't they implement syncing via rsync? That would still leave 99% of the people using Google's services, but it would give the rest, particularly corporate users, a safe way to sync. Why can't I use Google Play without a Google Account. And why doesn't it use HTTP?

    5. The whole idea of a "Store" as the only intended way of managed software distribution. Why didn't they add a repository, so I can install open source software just like I do with every normal Linux distribution.

    Again, you might see many of those points as advantages of Android, however those are things IOS already did before, and by now just about anybody does.

    I just wish there still was a "mobile Debian" around.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn

      The "tying in to a Google account" is the reason Android is *cough* "free" *cough* - you pay for it with your privacy. Google has publicly implied that it uses Android as a continuation of the Streetview WiFi data gathering it got itself into serious trouble with, so you're basically walking around with a device that doesn't just spy on you, but also on those around you. Tying it to a Google account means that it can allocate events to an ID, and flog the result.

      "Free" indeed..

      1. Christian Berger

        Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn

        Well then again, if 99% of the customers hook it into their Google accounts, that's enough for Google. By not forcing people they could probably even increase the total market share. People who don't want Google now install Cyanogenmod or get some other OS. (although the alternatives are getting fewer and fewer)

    2. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn

      You were doing okay until you suggested X11. I can only imagine you've never tried to code against that fucker. Kafka couldn't have done better.

      1. Frumious Bandersnatch

        Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn

        I can only imagine you've never tried to code against [X11] Kafka couldn't have done better.

        I don't know. The client-server paradigm they use is pretty cool (even if they decide to swap the names around). I think if you really want Kafkaesque then you have to be an iphone user. Your arms and legs may no longer be in the place you expect them to be and and you're experiencing difficulty coordinating your extremities to perform what should be a mundane task, but still all you have in mind is asking Siri whether you can make the next train in time for work.

    3. rich_a

      Re: Maybe it's a good time to look back and learn

      "That Java Davlik thingy. OK, the idea was that you could have software on multiple CPU platforms. However today much of the software running on Android loads binary CPU-dependent libraries."

      Define "much"? Sure some top-end games and some CPU-heavy apps (Skype and the like) may load binaries for a specific arch, but the majority of the applications (calculators, fart apps, diaries etc.) don't.

      "The whole idea of a "Store" as the only intended way of managed software distribution. Why didn't they add a repository, so I can install open source software just like I do with every normal Linux distribution."

      Nothing to stop you from doing that once you're rooted. The current approach of allowing non-market apps, but forcing users to check the permissions of each app they wish to sideload before installation is an acceptable workaround, I think.

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