When Google launched its Android OS 10 years ago, Apple’s iOS and Nokia’s Symbian OS were already dominating the market. So, it took some time for Android to pick up the pace. Within two years it overtook its rivals and climbed up to first place.
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Unlike Apple’s iPhone OS (which was later renamed iOS), Android was an open-source platform powered by the Linux kernel, allowing developers to create their own mobile interfaces based on the Android framework.
Over the course of 10 years, Android grew to become the world’s most popular OS. Today, Android has taken over 88 percent of the market share while Apple’s holding only 11.9 percent of the share. Android now runs a huge number of smartwatches, phones, tablets, TVs and more.
In the beginning, Android faced some difficulties. By default, it couldn’t play any video outside of YouTube. Google Play’s predecessor Android Market had only a handful of apps.
Google wanted Android to be an open, internet-centric OS that would run mobile phone, and its potential could be easily spotted when most of the phones during that era didn’t have internet.
Google was able to seize that potential and within 2 years due to both rapid software upgrades as well as flagships like the Motorola Droid and Samsung Galaxy S Android became the most popular OS in the market.
Today, on almost all the smartphones except for Apple, Android is the de facto software, and as of 2017 it was found on more than two billion running devices, reports EndGadget. Also, it managed to go beyond mobile phones and found its place on a trove of smartwatches, tablets and TVs, as well as ovens and VR headsets. Android is also present On PCs, with Chrome OS, Android apps can be run on laptops.
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In short, Android has developed into a healthy, strong and popular OS but it still has a long way to go and we look forward to seeing the evolution continue.
Enjoy this old video of Google’s staff introducing the first version of Android 10 years ago:
