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Before the iPhone was announced, Android didn't support touchscreen input
- Thread starter Kendo
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No, this was already revealed several years ago. I think it's weird that it's popped up on Engadget's page again, considering I think they were ones who broke the news in the first place.
Some pretty old articles about the subject matter. I remember Gizmodo had a big story about it too, including an interview with (ex-maybe?) Android workers.
Read the forums here and you'll see many deny that Apple's original iPhone had any influence on Android, regardless of how much documentation comes out to support it.
I thought everybody was already well aware of this. Android was more like BlackBerry at first. There's no denying that Apple opened up a whole new world with the introduction of the 1st iPhone.
I don't think that anyone is denying that the iphone influenced android.
Where arguments start are at the following points:
1. iPhone fans denying that Apple took any cues from phones that came before it (iPhone was not the first touch screen device, nor first touchscreen phone)
2. iPhone fans' supposition that early android was based on, or basically copying iOS (a little ridiculous if you ever used an iPhone 2G and an HTC G1).
Inspired or not, Android took a very different tack in terms of design and basic function from the iPhone. The first Android was a slider with a hardware keyboard (and a touchscreen) with cloud sync built in (for contacts and email) from the very start. It also used external SD card storage and let you sync media without the need for extra software. Oh, and the G1 launched with the Android marketplace (whereas the itunes store became accessible to iphones a few months after the phone launched).
If google was trying to copy apple then they did a poor job.
The document was a draft, dating back to over two years before the first Android device hit the market.
Likewise, two years before the first iPhone hit the market, Apple was still using iPods to prototype a phone UI using trackwheels.
Fortunately, ideas evolve, even if old documentation does not.
I think the point is that just a few months before the iPhone was announced that Android hadn't supported touchscreens. The document was revised after the iPhone had been announced stating touchscreens were now a requirement. I think it's just further confirmation that iPhone influenced Android.
Something else is weird though. I thought there were two prototypes: one with a touchscreen and one without. This document makes it sound like that prototype didn't exist at this point. Or was it secret?
We have to read these articles carefully.
The article simply noted that the later Android documentation had touchscreen support. The desired implication was that one thing followed the other, but there's nothing in the evidence so far that says so.
Yep, it's quite likely that certain gee-whiz features were added because Apple had made them popular. But basic touch support is not likely one of them.
Could've been secret, but I don't think Google works that way internally, does it? Dianne Hackborn began working at Android in 2006 and she says she knew about the touchscreen Dream device before the iPhone came out.
One big clue to me is that this document was a very unfinished draft. In major corporations, there are tons of such dead end documents stored away. Believe me, I have a whole file drawer of my own
By around mid 2006 it was obvious to everyone and their dog that finger friendly UIs on capacitive touchscreens were going to take over sometime in 2007.
My guess is that this mid-2006 document was begun to present the touchless device version to carriers, but was never finished because it simply got out of date.
It would be helpful if Google could present a 2006 dated document for the Dream. At the same time, it would not matter in an infringement suit even if Google had totally scoped out everything ahead of time. Infringement liability does not care if you independently invented something, if you didn't take the time to patent it.
The video above doesn't work?
Anyway I have read that Google had several different handsets in development, both with and without touchscreens, and that was before the iPhone was announced.
So no Apple did not influence Androids to have touchscreens, and it's a bit daft to suggest it considering phones have had touchscreen inputs since around 2000.
Anyway I have read that Google had several different handsets in development, both with and without touchscreens, and that was before the iPhone was announced.
So no Apple did not influence Androids to have touchscreens, and it's a bit daft to suggest it considering phones have had touchscreen inputs since around 2000.
Pretty sure Android supported touchscreen input before the iPhone annoucement. It was just that there were two models in development, one had a touchscreen the other did not. The non-touchscreen model was going to be released first but they decided not to release it at all after the iphone announcement.
Really all that daft?
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/12/2...reaction-to-the-original-iphone-introduction/
"Chris DeSalvos reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought Were going to have to start over.
Keep in mind, the above quote comes from a Google engineer.
Yes its totally daft to suggest it as to do so is to completely ignore 7 years of mobile phone technology before the iPhone, then again that seems to be common practice on this forum.
Dianne Hackborn, who has street cred, and was a primary Android developer, corrected that one right away:
"The quote from DeSalvo is completely not true. As I said in the original quoted piece, pretty much all of the Android system as released in 1.0 was under development in that shape by early 2006. I can say for the stuff I worked on -- resource system, binder, package manager, window manager, activity manager, parts of the view hierarchy and many of the framework APIs -- none of this changed at all significantly due to the iPhone, and it certainly was in no way shape or form started over. At all. Period. It just did not happen.
That wouldn't be about touchscreens per se, but how apps utilized them.
DeSalvo worked on updating and integrating apps with the frameworks.
So I think he likely meant they would want to make the core apps more finger friendly and glamorous, versus the menu driven versions they probably had done so far.
To OS developer Hackborn, that would not be "starting over". To an app integrator, it could be thought of in that way.