Google’s Android OS is One Year Old!

Android – Google’s open source mobile operating system turned one yesterday!

It all started way back in July 2005, when Google acquired Android Inc. Rumors started building up that Google was trying to move into mobile marketplace, but it was not clear whether they were developing mobile software for their existing products or get into the handset business.

On 5 November 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a group of several companies in the mobile industry was formed with the objective to improve open standards for mobile devices. Their first product was Android, which was built on the Linux kernel version 2.6. But it was only on 21 October, 2008 Android was made open source and released under Apache License.

Mobile advertising firm, AdMob has interesting numbers about Android’s first year as a mobile platform:

• Android currently has 7% worldwide market share. Symbian, BlackBerry and the iPhone still lead, but Windows Mobile is lagging behind Android at the moment.
• In the UK, 10% of smartphones run Android OS and HTC Dream is following iPhone as the most popular phone for surfing the web
• Android’s crucial markets are North America and Western Europe.
• HTC Magic is one among the top 10 of smartphones.
• The HTC Dream is rated fourth worldwide.

Android is yet to make any solid presence here in India. Couple of models from HTC has been released, but they are highly overpriced compared to other countries. Do you own an Android powered phone? Tell us about your Android experience.