Gadgetory

start to imagine a smartphone world without Android in it but it wasn't that long ago that Android didn't exist let's go back in time and revisit the very first Android device the t-mobile g1 were also known as the HTC dream Android story started in July 2005 when they made it the time would seem like a very benign acquisition of Android ink company led by Andy Rubin was working out an unspecified sock or mobile devices that was all anybody knew at this point in the story I'm going to stop talking about Google and talked about Apple for a minute I know it's gonna ruffle some feathers but the January 2007 unveiling of the iPhone caught Rubin completely off-guard and force him to totally change its course what he was designing in fact we see what he was designing it's leaked out sense as a sooner prototype and more black by looking smartphone in the modern touchscreen we eventually got with the HTC One the operating systems design was completely redone reworked and retooled and attention was shifted to a brand new prototype codenamed dream is I had to include a physical keyboard his Android developers the time didn't like the idea of a virtual keyboard thought it lacked a physical feedback I mean hardware keyboards way more useful and Android as we know it was officially born in November 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance we didn't see the very first handset until September 23rd 2008 when HTC officially announced they would be the maker of the t-mobile g1 or the HTC dream I remember getting the g1 it was one of the very first devices I reviewed back in the day now and here is the box itself t-mobile g1 and I loved the way the phone loved it was different it was quirky it was unique it represented Android as a whole Google's original philosophy for the g1 is kind of similar to what it is now it's centered on a one-click search in rich web experience large and t-mobile's 3G network at the time which Google said was essential to its success and people flocked the g1 in droves whether not they loved the phone or represented the anti I phone after just six months on the market they're in a 5th place spot among the top-selling smartphones in the u.s. now spec wise looking back it seems meager but by 2008 standards it was pretty good had a 3.2 inch 320 by 480 screen which was 180 PPI had a random megapixel edge of 3.15 for the rear facing camera did not have a friend camera we'd see that come later it featured a pretty long lasting battery leased for 2008 at 1,150 milliamp hours 256 megabytes of internal storage but it did feature expandable storage totally the androids really embrace I go up to 16 gigabytes via micro sd and a 192 megabytes of RAM was design wise the G one's a bit odd-looking quirky let's say I love the slide-out mechanism it still works the one we have in the office today it was very well engineered if I roll design really indicative I think of HTC's design language the button layout was bit weird they were small and round and there was a physical send button a physical end and power button physical home button a back button and the menu button and in the middle of it was a scroll wheel something we saw make its way to Nexus One it's a very odd way to navigate but it was very common in phones at the time it also had a bit of an angle to it it's supposedly curved the microphones to your face as you were talking also of note there was no multi-touch on here all the build stuff aside the main attraction and still is the main attraction of Android was open environment they're hoping that app developers are going to be like heck yeah open development and launching with the g1 google also unveils the Android Market now of course known as Google Play offered around 50 apps the time while Google was forced to change direction after the iPhones launch the g1 featured a ton of features that Apple did not have at the time things like multitasking copy-and-paste pulled on notifications and of course home screen widget were all marquee features of the original Android 1.0 and obviously it came really integrated Google services too like Gmail and maps part of the appeal to g1 was that it was unfinished it wasn't yet fully formed and as Google likes to do it got better over time and early iOS updates fixed glaring over sites like the missing virtual keyboard lack of video recording for example and as important as the g1 was was also important the g1 set the stage for a year after the G ones launched Verizon released the massively popular Droid line of phones we started to see the current iteration of Android start to take shape the g1 holds a really important place not only my heart and I think probably yours as well but also in the company's history the g1 is a really important phone in the pantheon of our the openness of Android led to really fast adoption by a variety of manufacturers that wanted to take on Apple success it also helped that it was totally free to license looking back that you want it's like looking at baby pictures like wow look what you used to look like look what you used to be and it's cool to see how the g1 evolved how Android evolved to get us where we are now flagship devices where the Nexus line is gone where the pixel line is going to go did you want pave the way for that I think it's important to pay respect to devices it helped pave the way and certainly the road of Android is paved with HTC g1