Back to user-friendliness, though. Users could now quickly search the web, local files, contacts, and more directly from the home screen without having to open any apps. Donut also introduced a few aesthetic changes to Android, such as a redesigned Android Market, which offered more curation on top of free and paid apps.
While the updates to Android so far were outstanding, they were still incremental refinements of the same operating system. Around a year after Android was first released, Android 2. Eclair was the first device to feature Google Maps navigation , for instance, kicking off what soon became the death of the in-car GPS unit. While Maps has changed a lot since then, a few essential features showed up in the service that is still present today, such as turn-by-turn navigation and voice guidance.
The internet browser in Android Eclair also got revamped for the new operating system. Google added HTML5 support to the browser and the ability to play videos, putting Eclair on par with the ultimate mobile internet machine at the time — the iPhone. Last but not least was the lock screen, which got a significant refresh and allowed users to swipe to unlock — just like on the iPhone.
Android Froyo was first released in and proved why it was an advantage to have a Nexus phone. The Nexus One, which was the first Nexus phone to be released, was also the first phone to get the Android Froyo update.
Aimed more at refining the Android experience, Froyo offered users five home screen panels instead of three, and showed off a redesigned Gallery app. There were, however, a few under-the-hood improvements. For example, Froyo was the first version of Android to bring mobile hotspot support.
The Nexus program was finally coming into its own, and the release of Gingerbread confirmed that. Google chose the Samsung-built Nexus S for this one. Gingerbread also came with an improved keyboard, which offered new coloration for the keys, as well as improved multitouch support, which allowed users to press multiple keys to access a secondary keyboard.
Last but not least is that Gingerbread added support for the front-facing camera — what would us selfie-lovers do without that? Google had been making waves in the smartphone industry for a few years now, which made Honeycomb an exciting release purely because its target was tablets. It was even first showcased on a Motorola device that would eventually become the Xoom. Honeycomb provided a few design cues as to what would appear in future versions of Android.
Instead of accenting the operating system with the classic green Android color, for example, Google switched to blue accents. Perhaps the most significant move in Honeycomb was the fact that it removed the need for the physical button. Instead, the home, back, and menu buttons were all included in the software as virtual buttons, meaning they could be hidden or shown based on the application.
While the Android source code is released in an open-source format to help advance open standards across mobile devices, it is still packaged with proprietary software when sold on handset devices. Article Sources. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts.
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This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace. A point-of-sale POS terminal is a hardware system for processing card payments at retail locations. Mobile Payments: What You Should Know A mobile payment is a payment made for a product or service through a portable electronic device such as a tablet or smartphone. What Does Weightless Economy Mean? The term weightless economy refers to the trade of products and services that are abstract or intangible, such as professional services.
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That is six times as many as in Actually, Android is Andy Rubin — coworkers at Apple gave him the nickname back in because of his love for robots. Authors have used the term android in more diverse ways than robot or cyborg. In some fictional works, the difference between a robot and android is only their appearance, with androids being made to look like humans on the outside but with robot-like internal mechanics.
Android versions 1. Android made its official public debut in with Android 1. The Android 1. The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on October 30, , to John J Loud. This allowed Android phones to be sold by all carriers around the world.
Other features included the introduction of the Quick Search Box, and quick toggling between the Camera, Camcorder, and Gallery to streamline the media-capture experience.
One of the phones that were sold with Donut installed was the ill-fated Dell Streak. In October — about a year after the launch of Android 1. This version was the first to add text-to-speech support, and also introduced live wallpapers, multiple account support, and Google Maps navigation, among many other new features and improvements. The Motorola Droid was the first phone that sported Android 2. The Droid was also the first Android-based phone that was sold by Verizon Wireless.
Motorola had to get permission and pay some money to Lucasfilm to use the name for its phone. Motorola continued using the Droid brand for many of its phones as late as Android 2.
Smartphones sporting Froyo could take advantage of several new features, including Wi-Fi mobile hotspot functions, push notifications via the Android Cloud to Device Messaging C2DM service, flash support, and more. This marked a new approach for Google, with the company working closer than ever before with hardware manufacturer HTC to showcase pure Android. The OS received a user interface refresh under Gingerbread. It added support for using near field communication NFC functions for smartphones with the required hardware.
Gingerbread also laid the groundwork for the selfie by adding support for multiple cameras and video chat support within Google Talk.
This version of the OS is perhaps the oddball of the bunch. Honeycomb was created for tablets and other mobile devices with larger displays. It was first introduced in February , along with the Motorola Xoom tablet. The idea was that Honeycomb would offer features that could not be handled by the smaller displays found on smartphones at the time. Even though Honeycomb was available, some tablets were still released with the smartphone-based Android 2.
In the end, Honeycomb ended up being a version of Android that did not see wide adoption. Google decided to integrate most of its features in its next major 4. Released in October , the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android brought a number of new features. It combined many of the options of the tablet-only Honeycomb version with the smartphone-oriented Gingerbread. That kind of biometric sign-in support has evolved and improved considerably since.
Other notable changes with ICS included support for all on-screen buttons, swipe gestures to dismiss notifications and browser tabs, and the ability to monitor your data usage over mobile and Wi-Fi. Google quickly released versions 4. Android 4. Instead, he decided to do something different. He contacted Nestle, the creators of the KitKat bar, and asked them if they could use the name for Android 4. Nestle agreed and KitKat became the name of the next Android version.
This allowed phone makers to use the latest version of Android on much cheaper handsets. First launched in the fall of , Android 5. It made liberal use of lighting and shadow effects, among other things, to simulate a paper-like look for the Android user interface.
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