Android is an operating system designed for
smartphones and
tablets. It is based on technology developed by Android Inc., a company acquired by Google in 2005. Android was officially announced in late 2007 along with the establishment of the Open Handset Alliance which is a Google-led consortium in charge of Android development. Android is an open source project, meaning that manufacturers are not only allowed to use it for their devices but they may customize and tweak it according to their wishes. The first Android smartphone to be released in the United States was the HTC Dream in October 2008.
Android has been supported and adopted by several smartphone manufacturers from the start: companies such as Sony, Samsung and HTC are building Android phones, whereby the ability to customize the system has lead to a wide range of different-looking user interfaces. While some value Android for its large degree of freedom, others, including its main competitor
Apple, believe that the fragmentation of Android devices gets in the way of a seamless user experience.
The large number of manufacturers behind it has certainly added to Android quickly gaining marketshare: little more than two years after its release,
Android became the leading operating system for smartphones in the first quarter of 2011. By the third quarter of
2011, Android’s smartphone market share had risen to 52.5 percent. Simultaneously, Samsung, manufacturer of several Android flagship models, has become the market leader in the
smartphone market, surpassing Apple in
smartphone unit sales in the third quarter of 2011. Quickly gaining market share has been of crucial importance for the Android project, as it attracts developers of third party apps to the platform, which in turn adds value for potential customers.
Android Market is now the second-biggest app store in the world, trailing only Apple’s App Store in terms of available apps.
Since its original release, Android has frequently been updated. Curiously enough, each version is named after a dessert (in alphabetical order), with the latest releases named Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich. The latter two were designed to improve the user experience for tablet devices as Google is trying to gain a foothold in the
tablet market that is momentarily dominated by Apple’s iPad. Thus far, Android tablets have failed to make an impression on both critics and consumers. Next year ought to reveal whether Ice Cream Sandwich can change that.
Photo: Android Open Source project, wikimedia/cc