A Very Brief History of Android
In preparation for my soon-to-be-released 2013 device guide, I thought it might be a good time to explain the different versions of Android, the mobile operating system that powers the majority of the devices that I will be writing about. The truth is that Android's version history is a complicated mess, and it will help you, the consumer, to know a lot more about it. So here we go: an intro to the Android landscape. Android is a free and open source operating system project , developed and maintained by Google. Why is it free and open source? Android actually slightly pre-dates iPhone, but with Blackberry already the dominant smartphone provider in 2007 and iPhone's revolutionary hardware quickly catching up, Google had to take drastic action to get their foot in the door. Google’s strategy was to give Android away so that it would become the dominant mobile operating system. It worked. As time went by, Google figured out more ways to monetize their “free” operatin