Source: Andrew Myrick/ Android Central
Earlier this month, Android engineer Chet Haase launched Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System. It begins with the origins of the Android staff — earlier than and after Google acquired it in 2005 — as much as and simply previous the launch of Android 1.0 in 2008. It’s a fascinating story, and not only for hardcore engineers or programmers. Haase explains extra about the book on this Medium submit.
Most of the book dives into the nitty-gritty particulars of who made Android occur, as informed by way of interviews with the engineers. From the launcher to the design to the hottest Google apps, each function you take with no consideration in an Android telephone was usually dealt with by one or two folks, crunching seven days every week to complete in time.
You’ll possible be stunned to study simply how remoted Android’s staff and start-up tradition was from Google — a minimum of till Android achieved international success. You additionally get an in-depth take a look at the plans and concepts behind telephones like the HTC G1, Motorola Droid, and Nexus One.
The AC staff is hyped to evaluation this book and share our ideas as a result of all of us have totally different views on the book’s revelations and insights into early Android. So we extremely suggest you purchase Haase’s book and dig in for yourselves as a result of we do not wish to give all the juiciest tidbits away. Still, we could not assist however share a few of our collective ideas on Androids and why it is price the learn.
Behind the scenes
Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System
Read the unlikely path to Android’s success
Chet Haase’s self-published origins and history of early Android working programs is a must-read for followers of Android gadgets. Haase interviewed nearly everybody at Android throughout that interval, sharing their ideas on what went proper and what was plain luck. He even managed to ask Apple what it considered Android at the time, peppered with all the near-disasters Android navigated earlier than and after launch.
Haase: the narrator for Android’s history
Jerry Hildenbrand, Senior Editor
Source: Chet HaaseWriter Chet Haase
Chet Haase is an enormous big nerd. He’s extraordinarily personable, very approachable, and will be extremely humorous, which is why he is a superb presenter for Google. But he is additionally an enormous outdated nerd who writes a few of the stuff that makes Android so profitable.
He’s additionally the excellent writer for this book. The identical qualities that make Haase a terrific presenter transform the identical issues that make him a superb writer. By no means is Androids some dry tome about telephone software program for nerds.
Haase’s approachable book has sufficient particulars to fulfill Android superfans, however sufficient context to information an informal reader.
The Androids book, like Haase, is personable. It’s approachable. Many AC writers and readers have been eager about Android and Google lengthy sufficient to have watched the book’s occasions play out in real-time. We know the issues Google has informed us, the issues which have leaked out, and the issues nonetheless on the roadmap 12 years later. Even for these readers, it will have loads of new revelations.
While that is nonetheless a terrific book if you’re that form of superfan, it is also nice for a extra informal person. If you use Android and are eager about its previous, you’ll discover this book fulfilling as a result of it isn’t some techie journal for nerds. Just like its writer, Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System is one thing nearly all of us can relate to.
The Android story (not the Google story)
Michael Hicks, Senior Editor
Source: Android Central
Haase’s fascinating historic background of Android exhibits how a lot has modified in the smartphone trade. At the time, telephone specs catered absolutely to carriers’ calls for, Blackberries dominated the Earth, and nobody had confidence that Android could be something greater than “vaporware” in comparison with the new iPhone. It’ll be illuminating for the much less educated (like me) and nostalgic for veterans like my colleague Jerry.
So a lot has modified, however Google’s relationship with Android additionally exhibits how little has modified. Google had the foresight to grab Android up when the start-up was pitching its OS to varied firms and gave the staff the sources to rent the folks it wanted. But based on Haase, most Google staff members did not appear to suppose Android would quantity to something. Android engineers largely needed to code apps like Gmail and Maps by themselves as a result of the groups behind these providers did not wish to become involved.
What made Android a hit? I will not “spoil” the ending to this true story, however suffice to say that Android’s impressed coding might solely go thus far. It was advertising from different firms invested in Android’s open-sourced success that gave it the clout essential to compete with iOS.
Source: Phil Nickinson / Android Central
I additionally discovered it attention-grabbing to examine which telephones Android engineers invested the most effort into and the way it was a much less fashionable telephone that ended up paving the strategy to Android’s future.
How possible was it that Android might have been “killed by Google?” The odds had been larger than you would possibly suppose.
Haase did not make this connection, however his book made me consider the demise of Stadia Games, together with all the different “Killed by Google” initiatives. While Google unleashed the Android workers to make an incredible working system, it did not commit every other firm sources or assist to it till Android achieved success by itself. Only then did Android develop into extra integral to Google.
In different phrases, Android’s success was removed from inevitable. Haase’s book is stuffed with aggravating anecdotes about burning servers and unintentionally bricked telephones, together with the form of office crunch you usually see at a online game firm. Reading about Android’s behind-the-scenes tales — and how most Android engineers suppose luck and timing needed to do with its success — will make anybody with a terrific Android telephone grateful to have one.
An inspiring, unlikely success story
Jeramy Johnson, Editor
Source: Alex Dobie / Android Central
One of the issues that actually caught with me all through this book was how interconnected the (preliminary) staff was who constructed Android and introduced it to life. It was each fascinating and extraordinarily cool to find out how so a lot of the preliminary key gamers adopted one another round from job to job, employer to employer. They appeared genuinely eager on persevering with to work collectively.
For context, most of Android’s staff was employed from exterior Google (which was targeted on search engine advertisements and internet content material at the time). Android remained a complete secret, so nobody eager about telephone tech had cause to use for a job at Google then. Still, the small, but decided start-up staff reached out to colleagues who labored with them on previous failed phone-related initiatives at Danger, BeOS, PalmSource, and even Microsoft. This time, they acquired it proper.
Android developed at warp pace, with engineers flying by the seat of their pants. And it is superb to learn all about it.
On one degree, it is sensible. It’s simply simpler to work with folks you’re already snug and acquainted with, but it surely’s additionally comprehensible as a result of those self same folks had been the ones who knew how you can do the issues that wanted to get carried out. For the most half, it appeared like they often acquired together with one another, or a minimum of, they revered one another’s skills and talents. Stepping again a bit, I really feel like that is how Android Central and our sister websites work and get alongside, so it was good to see some parallel there between our staff and the authentic Android staff.
Another factor that fascinated me about Android’s origin story was simply how “by the seat of their pants” all of it felt. The platform was developed at warp pace and on the fly, and iterations had been fixed and ongoing. It all sounded as in the event that they had been constructing the ship whereas crusing (sorry, I’m unhealthy at metaphors), which is simply wild to me. It all labored out in the finish, however nobody concerned had any ensures.
I do not know that a lot about software program or product improvement, and I’m positive that the phenomena I described are usually not unusual in these fields. But studying about the way it all got here collectively actually gave me a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, the working system that all of us know and love — Android.
The elephant in the room
Michael Hicks
Source: Android CentralAndy Rubin’s Essential telephone
I did not know who Andy Rubin was till my colleagues warned me earlier than beginning the book. A co-founder of Android, Andy (as he is referred to in the book), comes up regularly as a decision-maker. When the staff could not select between utilizing Java or C++, he made the name, and he would push for very important, last-minute options for every new Android iteration. In one small chapter, he constructed an precise robotic in the Android workplace. Pretty benign stuff.
You would not know from the book that former Google CEO Larry Page pressured Rubin to resign in 2014 after Google discovered of credible sexual misconduct allegations that he coerced an Android staff member into giving him oral intercourse, adopted later by new allegations that he ran a intercourse ring. Despite all that, he nonetheless acquired a $90 million golden parachute, which prompted Google staff to stroll out when all of it got here to mild.
Andy Rubin comes throughout much less as Android’s father and extra as its government figurehead, demanding outcomes from an insanely gifted staff.
I’m not saying Haase did something incorrect by avoiding this subject or focusing a lot of the book on the “father” of Android. The book’s timeline largely precedes his notorious, alleged actions, and they did not issue into Android 1.0’s success or failure. In reality, the book makes him look a bit like a figurehead, demanding outcomes however not essentially contributing any particular function to Android. Much extra credit score for the coding and success of Android is attributed to different staff members like Brian Swetland, Dianne Hackborn, Hiroshi Lockheimer, and Ficus Kirkpatrick.
But, nicely, I will not deny that Rubin’s presence solid a shadow (for me) over a few of the earlier chapters targeted on Android’s formation. Androids makes you root for the staff as a bunch of scrappy underdogs preventing towards the odds to succeed. It’s simply laborious to root for Rubin. Still, this is not sufficient to smash an altogether wonderful book.
What did you consider Androids?
Source: Andrew Myrick/ Android Central
Once you get your arms on Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System, we might love to listen to what you considered it. What was your favourite story behind its improvement? Did you discover it to be too technical or not technical sufficient? And for the Android veterans on the market, which of the outdated Android telephones first satisfied you to offer the OS a attempt?
Let us know your ideas in the feedback!
Behind the scenes
Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System
Read the unlikely path to Android’s success
Chet Haase’s self-published account on the origins and history of early Android working programs is a must-read for followers of Android gadgets. Haase interviewed nearly everybody at Android throughout that interval, getting their ideas on what went proper and what was simply luck. He even acquired an inside perspective on what Apple considered Android at the time, plus all the near-disasters Android navigated earlier than and after launch.
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