Android had been working on their phone long before that. There is a story by Richard Hipp the creator of Sqlite who was flown in by Android to help with their

Android had been working on their phone long before that. There is a story by Richard Hipp the creator of Sqlite who was flown in by Android to help with their sqlite deployements on their phones long before it was public knowledge. He also had been working with Nokia/Ericsson who reigned supreme in cell phone market at that time and according to him what he saw by Android blew him away and knew that other companies were doomed. This was well before the Iphone days, I forget the exact date he mentioned but it was circa mid-2000s. It is clear that Apple and Android had been working on a similar product, apple just got to market first.