5 years ago, the Open Handset alliance was founded by industry hard-hitters like Google, HTC, Samsung, LG and Motorola. Their battle-cry was a strong commitment to a greater openness in the mobile eco-system. So on November 5, 2007, Android was born.
Well, not quite. Android was the brainchild of Andy Rubin who Google – along with his company – in 2005. After 2 years of development, Android was officially unveiled by the Open Handset Alliance in November 5 2007, although the first SDKs for the new OS didn’t arrive at developers virtual doorsteps until November 12. The first ever Android powered phone came out in 2008 as the T-Mobile G1. The HTC-built device sported Android 1.6 out of the bat, and only had a 3.2-inch display and 528MHz clock speed. Today we have quad-core processors and huge 5.5-inch displays, which is a testament how far the mobile OS has come. Happy 5th birthday, Android!