When the Android mobile operating system was first unveiled back in 2007, it was a sad-looking ripoff of the BlackBerry operating system. But when Apple launched the iPhone that year, Google immediately realised that it had seen the future of smartphones and it quickly went back to work in an effort to make its new mobile software more like the software on the iPhone. Fast-forward to 2014, and Google is the clear leader in terms of global market share, and its mobile software has grown by leaps and bounds. In fact, the tables have turned and it is now Apple that is copying features from Android with each new iOS update.
To illustrate how much Android has grown over the past seven years, Ars Technica put together a brief visual history of the platform’s user interface.
It’s clear that Google has maintained similar design elements with each new version of Android. Even from just looking at the evolution of the home screen, however, we can see how much more refined the platform is now compared to the early days.
Ars’ post is linked below in our source section, and here’s Google’s very first Android demo video to remind us of how far the platform has come:
