A detailed history of Android — from 2003 to today

Today, Google’s Android is a brand akin to Coca-Cola or McDonalds. The software is everywhere, and it powers an endless variety of gizmos and gadgetry, some of which might surprise you. 

It’s easy to forget that Android is little more than a decade old. I fondly remember one of my first editors at CIO.com asking me to write a story about “WHAT ANDROID MEANS TO ENTERPRISE.” I write that title in capital letters, bold, italics, underline and quotation marks because the story was supposed to have gravity. This was in 2007 or 2008, when Android was more of a concept than something the average Joe could grasp in his hands. I was supposed to explain the mysterious OS, and quell the fears of CIOs, who worried the consumer software would make their jobs harder.

Today, we know it did. In some ways, it was a contributing factor in the ever-evolving BYOD movement. (I tried to dig up that story, but CIO.com has since undergone multiple digital brain transplants and bypasses, and it somehow got lost in all that cutting and replacing.)

Anyway, the reason for the reminiscing: a pitch I received yesterday from Udemy, an online instruction and learning site that’s all about “helping anyone learn anything.” The PR woman brought Udemy’s recent “Android through the course of history” timeline to my attention, and though it could use a quality edit and I can’t vouch for every single fact, it’s worth a look.

This week, I reviewed one of the newest and coolest Android smartphones. I did my best to nitpick and find the Galaxy S6 active’s shortcomings, but it seems appropriate to step back and appreciate just how far mobile devices, and Android, have come during the past 10 years. Udemy’s timeline is a great way to do just that.

AS