Unlike some of Ars' other epic history articles, this one didn't really get me too excited. It seemed pretty screenshot-heavy, thin on technical details (especially the 'why's behind version-to-version changes, the 'who's behind the original and ongoing development, etc.).
Most of the information is nice to know, but the story really remains to be told. This article is far from a Sircusa Mac OS X review (which I usually spend at least an hour reading every year).
In the end, the article reminded me more of a journal of someone's spelunking adventure rather than a personal story with an interesting slant, so I felt less inclined to power through the last few pages.
I'm really glad that this article has been put together just to at least have some idea of the way things were.
If they are planning to keep this updated as android evolves I really hope they go back to each of these previous versions and give a bit more context around the industry at the time.
There are certain comments in there generalizing around 'people weren't ready for xxx' but they obviously were as other OSs had the functionality at the time.
I got a massive nostalgy rush out of the 0.5 screenshots.
When I was summer intern at Nokia back in 2007 we installed android beta version into N800 (the small Linux tablet by Nokia). And for maximum amount of trolling we even taped the text "gPhone" in it (iPhone had just been released).
This was absolutely non official but hey. It was fun! The actual port was made by someone at maemo forums so we didn't even waste too much work hours on it.
I really hope Android 5.0 is coming out at I/O. It's a bit overdue. Google usually pushes major .0 revisions every 2 years. 2.0 in 2009. 4.0 in 2011, and 5.0 in 2013...NOT.
It's 2014 and no 5.0 in sight, except for a very weak rumor about the date on a Nexus phone being 5:00. If they wait until fall this year, it would be 3 years for the 5.0 release, just as much as for a typical Windows release, which I find pretty ridiculous considering Android isn't even trying to work on all devices out there before it's released.
Hopefully Google will release it soon, otherwise I'll be very disappointed.
To be honest, there have only been two major relevant Android versions; 2.x and 4.x. Under 4.x, they realised that getting updates to devices (where they had to rely on phone manufacturers) just wasn't dependable, and they overhauled both their OS's architecture (moving most services out of the core OS into Google Play Services) and their release system (allowing for over-the-air updates without the phone manufacturers' intervention).
So unless they've rebuilt Android from the ground up, I doubt they're going to do a 5.0.
I feel the OS has been updated a lot in the last year or two but mostly by app updates as Google is now moving a lot of their stock Android apps to the play store.
Much sought after features like a tighter Hangouts/Voice/Sms integration would 'only' need an app upgrade as opposed to a new OS.
From what I've read, the general hypothesis is that Goog will likely stick with 4.x numbering for some time. Imho they'll switch to 5.x when they decide to drop support for ~2012 Nexus devices (Nexus 4, Nexus 7 etc).
One thing that you have to respect about Google and Android, like a constantly changing (dare we say gentrifying and revitalizing) urban neighborhood - they aren't afraid to try new things, tear down old things, invest, and divest.
John Gruber had a much favorited tweet during WWDC that he revisited in his blog.
"Microsoft: one OS for all devices.
Apple: one continuous experience across all devices.
That tweet was massively popular,1 but I missed a word: across all Apple devices. Microsoft and Google are the ones who are more similarly focused. Microsoft wants you to run Windows on all your devices, from phones to tablets to PCs. Google wants you signed into Google services on all your devices, from phones to tablets to PCs."
The article is much about look and not enough about what makes Android different.
The two biggest changes in Android were the Fragment class and a greater emphasis on multiple layouts to scale UIs across many screen geometries, and Google Play Services.
Outwardly, Android looks much much prettier. But it's the same Home app, with an evolved but fundamentally the same AppWidget architecture under that prettier face.
Android's core features, like AIDL-based IPC, Intent and filters for Intent types, and ContentProvider have been remarkably stable and constant. And they have been under-appreciated and under-exploited, with the exception of ACTION_SEND intents for the "Share" menu. Too few apps expose an API or expose their data through a ContentProvider. Too few apps provide Intent matching for actions other than ACTION_SEND.
Very great article, and yet quite sad and scary. You can grab an old apple ][ and run programs from 30years ago! If you can get access to a PDP computer, you can run programs from 40 years ago on it! Or even the emulator. You are not going to be able to run your favorite andorid programs 10-20years from now.
Just the other day, a link was posted on here about how to get a Lisp machine running in your Linux. I downloaded the binary and some source and got one up and running about 2 years ago. To be able to time travel to the past and explore what has been done without just reading about it is a great experience. With the mobile eco system, we are going to miss out on this. There are going to be great programs that will be written and then rot away with time never to be recovered.
I strongly believe Google will replace ChromeOS with Android some day. ChromeOS compared to Android "Just Works™".
I'm usually an iPhone user but I am very curious about Android so often make the switch. Last time I switched to Galaxy Nexus my experience was not so good. Battery life and UI smoothness was far from iPhone. I switched back to iPhone.
This time I switched to Android via a Nexus 5. Battery life is still not acceptable and many times I experienced things not working. Having to kill an app or cleaning their local cache are things I don't want to do on my phone. Specially when I'm trying to get around or find a very urgent information. I'm going to switch to iPhone with next release and wait for an operation system from Google that work as good as Chrome or iPhone.
This time I switched to Android via a Nexus 5. Battery life is still not acceptable
I switched to Moto X after using an iPhone for four and a half years. With the same usage patterns, my Moto X lasts as long as my iPhone 4 before. The Nexus 5 is apparently notorious when it comes to actual battery life.
Having to kill an app or cleaning their local cache are things I don't want to do on my phone. Specially when I'm trying to get around or find a very urgent information.
Never had to that that. In fact, my experience is quite the opposite. Even after all those years, iMessage messages would arrive minutes to ours too late or in the wrong order (very annoying when you have to meet with someone). iTunes Match would often only download albums partially. Calendar sync was not immediate (there was often a delay between adding an appointment and it showing up on the Mac and vise versa).
Since switching to Android I wouldn't want to go back. It has decent keyboards (finally coming in iOS 8), I can actually share data between apps (finally coming in iOS 8), I can attach files from within the e-mail client (rather than only being able to pick a file from an app and then saying that I want to share it via e-mail). Google Now and voice recognition are awfully much better than Siri, especially because it's actually integrated in the Google Now Launcher, and not an island on its own.
Besides that fact that I find Android far more pleasing, I bought my Moto X for half the price of an iPhone 5 and I have a data plan for 10 Euro per month. This means I can upgrade my phone every 8-12 month without spending a dime extra.
Android is phenomenal success and needs no messing with. It will spread from tablets and handsets to TVs, cameras, cars, appliances, etc. Android will have a multi-decades dominance like Windows had, but spread across more different touchscreen hardware platforms.
Chrome OS is doing a brilliant job soaking up Windows refugees with a laptop/netbook form factor, where you have a touchpad or other pointing device, so you don't have to make the Web finger-touchable, which it isn't.
People will try to mix the two, but there is no point.
EDIT: Yes I know TV isn't touch, but it is a d-pad/select style of interaction, which Android always supported, even before touch.
I think Android benefits from the general Google halo effect, but it just isn't very good. It's OK, in the same way Windows 98 was OK. My Nexus 5 has been buggier than my Lumia 620 or the iPhone 5 or iPhone 4 I had before that. Just little things: messed up text boxes in Chrome, app hangs in Chrome, etc. Some random bad design: if you turn off location services, which I do because of the marginal battery life, Maps will just sit around waiting for a location--it won't tell you to turn it on in the preferences. Its not the reliable appliance I want it to be. I have a regimented weekday schedule, and by midday I could be on my last legs battery wise, or still have half a tank. For some reason, I have a Gallery app as well as a Photos app. Of course, it'll continue to be popular because it's free.
It's fine. It's just not that great. I too am back on the iPhone when they come out with bigger screens.
My experience has been the opposite. In fact there were couple of articles with evidence of android apps being more stable than their iOS versions [0]. The difference wasn't large however.
Its the same case with battery life. It seems pretty comparable to the iPhone 5 and 5S [1]
For what it's worth, I work in retail, and the average iPhone/iPad-using customer/staff member believes their devices run better when they manually kill apps. I also see quite a few iPhone customers who literally kill every app they use as soon as they finish using it.
I can't think of any Nexus device that had a long battery life. The pressure to deliver a high-spec $350 phone means cuts somewhere. The big beautiful screen uses a lot of juice as well. I think if you want battery like you should not buy into the Nexus platform.
That said, its certainly not bad. There are reviews of long on-screen usage and its certainly usable. It just may not be as long as the tiny-screen iphone.
Things not working on Nexus for me is pretty rare. Usually one bad application that wasn't expecting to be on the newest version of Android and has not been properly tested for it.. Typically, these get patched quickly.
Android has a web browser and if you dont like native apps just dont install any. WebOS only cant be successfull when the competition have all their features + native apps.
[+] [-] geerlingguy|11 years ago|reply
Most of the information is nice to know, but the story really remains to be told. This article is far from a Sircusa Mac OS X review (which I usually spend at least an hour reading every year).
In the end, the article reminded me more of a journal of someone's spelunking adventure rather than a personal story with an interesting slant, so I felt less inclined to power through the last few pages.
[+] [-] bobbles|11 years ago|reply
If they are planning to keep this updated as android evolves I really hope they go back to each of these previous versions and give a bit more context around the industry at the time.
There are certain comments in there generalizing around 'people weren't ready for xxx' but they obviously were as other OSs had the functionality at the time.
[+] [-] sharpneli|11 years ago|reply
When I was summer intern at Nokia back in 2007 we installed android beta version into N800 (the small Linux tablet by Nokia). And for maximum amount of trolling we even taped the text "gPhone" in it (iPhone had just been released).
This was absolutely non official but hey. It was fun! The actual port was made by someone at maemo forums so we didn't even waste too much work hours on it.
[+] [-] higherpurpose|11 years ago|reply
It's 2014 and no 5.0 in sight, except for a very weak rumor about the date on a Nexus phone being 5:00. If they wait until fall this year, it would be 3 years for the 5.0 release, just as much as for a typical Windows release, which I find pretty ridiculous considering Android isn't even trying to work on all devices out there before it's released.
Hopefully Google will release it soon, otherwise I'll be very disappointed.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|11 years ago|reply
So unless they've rebuilt Android from the ground up, I doubt they're going to do a 5.0.
[+] [-] koyote|11 years ago|reply
I feel the OS has been updated a lot in the last year or two but mostly by app updates as Google is now moving a lot of their stock Android apps to the play store.
Much sought after features like a tighter Hangouts/Voice/Sms integration would 'only' need an app upgrade as opposed to a new OS.
[+] [-] nly|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wallflower|11 years ago|reply
John Gruber had a much favorited tweet during WWDC that he revisited in his blog.
"Microsoft: one OS for all devices.
Apple: one continuous experience across all devices.
That tweet was massively popular,1 but I missed a word: across all Apple devices. Microsoft and Google are the ones who are more similarly focused. Microsoft wants you to run Windows on all your devices, from phones to tablets to PCs. Google wants you signed into Google services on all your devices, from phones to tablets to PCs."
http://daringfireball.net/2014/06/only_apple
[+] [-] Zigurd|11 years ago|reply
The two biggest changes in Android were the Fragment class and a greater emphasis on multiple layouts to scale UIs across many screen geometries, and Google Play Services.
Outwardly, Android looks much much prettier. But it's the same Home app, with an evolved but fundamentally the same AppWidget architecture under that prettier face.
Android's core features, like AIDL-based IPC, Intent and filters for Intent types, and ContentProvider have been remarkably stable and constant. And they have been under-appreciated and under-exploited, with the exception of ACTION_SEND intents for the "Share" menu. Too few apps expose an API or expose their data through a ContentProvider. Too few apps provide Intent matching for actions other than ACTION_SEND.
[+] [-] segmondy|11 years ago|reply
Just the other day, a link was posted on here about how to get a Lisp machine running in your Linux. I downloaded the binary and some source and got one up and running about 2 years ago. To be able to time travel to the past and explore what has been done without just reading about it is a great experience. With the mobile eco system, we are going to miss out on this. There are going to be great programs that will be written and then rot away with time never to be recovered.
Quite sad if you ask me.
[+] [-] th0ma5|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattquiros|11 years ago|reply
My first reaction was, "Haha, no shit." And then it gave me goosebumps to realize how it's just seven years ago but so much has happened.
[+] [-] serge2k|11 years ago|reply
Is that a good thing?
[+] [-] msoad|11 years ago|reply
I'm usually an iPhone user but I am very curious about Android so often make the switch. Last time I switched to Galaxy Nexus my experience was not so good. Battery life and UI smoothness was far from iPhone. I switched back to iPhone.
This time I switched to Android via a Nexus 5. Battery life is still not acceptable and many times I experienced things not working. Having to kill an app or cleaning their local cache are things I don't want to do on my phone. Specially when I'm trying to get around or find a very urgent information. I'm going to switch to iPhone with next release and wait for an operation system from Google that work as good as Chrome or iPhone.
[+] [-] microtonal|11 years ago|reply
I switched to Moto X after using an iPhone for four and a half years. With the same usage patterns, my Moto X lasts as long as my iPhone 4 before. The Nexus 5 is apparently notorious when it comes to actual battery life.
Having to kill an app or cleaning their local cache are things I don't want to do on my phone. Specially when I'm trying to get around or find a very urgent information.
Never had to that that. In fact, my experience is quite the opposite. Even after all those years, iMessage messages would arrive minutes to ours too late or in the wrong order (very annoying when you have to meet with someone). iTunes Match would often only download albums partially. Calendar sync was not immediate (there was often a delay between adding an appointment and it showing up on the Mac and vise versa).
Since switching to Android I wouldn't want to go back. It has decent keyboards (finally coming in iOS 8), I can actually share data between apps (finally coming in iOS 8), I can attach files from within the e-mail client (rather than only being able to pick a file from an app and then saying that I want to share it via e-mail). Google Now and voice recognition are awfully much better than Siri, especially because it's actually integrated in the Google Now Launcher, and not an island on its own.
Besides that fact that I find Android far more pleasing, I bought my Moto X for half the price of an iPhone 5 and I have a data plan for 10 Euro per month. This means I can upgrade my phone every 8-12 month without spending a dime extra.
[+] [-] pavanky|11 years ago|reply
I haven't had to do this in a long long time. What apps were you using that required you to do this?
[+] [-] Zigurd|11 years ago|reply
Android is phenomenal success and needs no messing with. It will spread from tablets and handsets to TVs, cameras, cars, appliances, etc. Android will have a multi-decades dominance like Windows had, but spread across more different touchscreen hardware platforms.
Chrome OS is doing a brilliant job soaking up Windows refugees with a laptop/netbook form factor, where you have a touchpad or other pointing device, so you don't have to make the Web finger-touchable, which it isn't.
People will try to mix the two, but there is no point.
EDIT: Yes I know TV isn't touch, but it is a d-pad/select style of interaction, which Android always supported, even before touch.
[+] [-] rayiner|11 years ago|reply
It's fine. It's just not that great. I too am back on the iPhone when they come out with bigger screens.
[+] [-] piyush_soni|11 years ago|reply
I've never had to clean caches or kill apps since the date I bought the Nexus 5 in Oct. last year.
[+] [-] mirsadm|11 years ago|reply
Its the same case with battery life. It seems pretty comparable to the iPhone 5 and 5S [1]
[0] http://bgr.com/2014/03/28/apple-android-app-stability/
[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/7517/google-nexus-5-review/3
[+] [-] briandh|11 years ago|reply
How do you know this is an Android issue rather than a hardware-specific one?
It's hard to come to a strong conclusion without having hardware that runs both iOS and Android.
Unless there are major power-oriented architectural differences in iOS, which I would be interested in hearing about if that is the case.
[+] [-] jasonisalive|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|11 years ago|reply
I can't think of any Nexus device that had a long battery life. The pressure to deliver a high-spec $350 phone means cuts somewhere. The big beautiful screen uses a lot of juice as well. I think if you want battery like you should not buy into the Nexus platform.
That said, its certainly not bad. There are reviews of long on-screen usage and its certainly usable. It just may not be as long as the tiny-screen iphone.
Things not working on Nexus for me is pretty rare. Usually one bad application that wasn't expecting to be on the newest version of Android and has not been properly tested for it.. Typically, these get patched quickly.
[+] [-] aikah|11 years ago|reply