5 ms·

15 Years of Android Memories

47 points by lawgimenez 3y ago

pzmarzly 3y ago
TIL HTC Dream was called T-Mobile G1 in the States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream
- archeantus 3y ago
  My first smartphone. I started working at Tmobile in college as a sales rep when the G1 came out and I immediately was smitten with it. The functionality and experience was so much better than anything that BlackBerry had to offer, yet all of the seasoned reps scoffed at the G1 and continued to push and sell Blackberries. They thought I was crazy to carry and sell the G1. I think I got the last laugh.
  - plugin-baby 3y ago
    How was UI responsiveness vs blackberry? And keyboard?
    - codethief 3y ago
      Not OP and I also never used a Blackberry but, man, the G1's keyboard was so so good! I could (and did) type for hours and could even type blindly (without even looking at the screen).
- cglong 3y ago
  One of the understated innovations of the iPhone was bringing awareness of the phone manufacturer to the masses, disrupting the relationship between customer and carrier. Android provided (and still does) a way for carriers to regain some control in that relationship. One example is Verizon's Droid campaign, which was so successful that "Droid" became a genericized trademark for any Android phone for a decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Droid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Droid
  - petepete 3y ago
    This is incredibly US-centric, the line between manufacturer and carrier is much clearer just about everywhere else in the world.
    - cglong 3y ago
      Well yeah, the comment I was replying to was about the US :D
    - fomine3 3y ago
      Manufacturer and career relationship was very strong in Japan ,because career was a new service developer and order what to make. iPhone did great here too.
      - numpad0 3y ago
        Still is. iPhone never allowing carrier-customized ROM changed everything. At least now we can disable ~stupid~ sheep wandering homescreen on localized Android phones.
anotheronelost 3y ago
Missing from 2014: pushed out Lollipop release to OG Nexus tablets, destroying performance, leaving only those technical enough to downgrade with any way to keep using the devices. 2023: pushed out Android 14 update, removing access to any additional profiles used on the devices. TBF they still have time to deal with this one, but their response so far has been terrible. And yet I still buy the damn things because there's no suitable alternative for me (ios doesn't have fdroid, netguard, non safari browsers etc.).
- psbp 3y ago
  Android 14 has been a buggy mess for me on the Pixel 7 Pro. It's confounding that Google is still pushing out buggy Android releases.
  - shric 3y ago
    I upgraded to 14 on my Pixel 7 Pro a few days ago and didn't notice any problem so far. What are the worst issues I am likely to encounter?
    - dataflow 3y ago
      > What are the worst issues I am likely to encounter? Complete loss of data. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/android-14s-ransomware-data-storage-bug-locks-out-users-remains-unfixed/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/android-14s-ransomwa... Back up your data while you can.
      - codethief 3y ago
        Oh fuck me. Given that I'm on automatic updates and the update has already been downloaded, next time I reboot my phone it will switch to Android 14 automatically. :( (And yup, I'm using work profiles and all that.)
        dataflow 3y ago
hulitu 3y ago
> our mission has always been to bring computing to everyone Yet if you try to do computing on Android, you hit a wall: file access is absymal from a user point of view (virtual folders ?). Text editors are terrible. The only thing existing are some BASIC interpreters, terrible to use. Combine this with the unaccessible GUI (small scroll bars, widgets too big or too small) and everything tells you to go away and never look back. Android is a computing device, in the same way your microwave is a computing device.
- kome 3y ago
  android and ios are mainly for consumption and surveillance... not creation.
- kaba0 3y ago
  As opposed to what? Your Linux desktop that will readily allow sending your browser cache, ssh keys, family photos to anyone with a simple ‘npm install’, nothing at all preventing it? Also, if you call that GUI inaccessible, you write from a place of privilege: mobile platforms absolutely beat the shit out of any desktop computer on accessibility count, hands down, any people with some kind of disability will tell you as much. There are negatives, but also, all around mobile OSs are a newer generation of OSs, that fixes many problems of their forefathers. To not call them computing devices is just unreasonable.
  - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
    > Your Linux desktop that will readily allow sending your browser cache, ssh keys, family photos to anyone with a simple ‘npm install’, nothing at all preventing it? That's why everyone is pushing for development in containers..
    - kaba0 3y ago
      Containers are not sandboxes at all!
      - 3y ago
jhatemyjob 3y ago
I wouldn't say 15 years, the HTC Dream / G1 / whatever you wanna call it was a flop. The first real Android phones came out in 2009
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
carstenhag 3y ago
With all its flaws and lets say "quirks" because we are doing with Google here, I am happy to be an android developer and make good money with it (Germany). I usually compare my situation with my iOS colleagues. When I find a bug or documentation issue in a Google library that is still maintained properly, after creating a bug on their issue tracker, you usually get a real person to properly analyze your issue within 1 month, maybe it's even fixed in that timeframe if you are lucky. Sometimes you think a library is maintained and officially it is so, but they say development has stopped because of other priorities. Or "basic" features take years to be implemented. If you know the right person on Twitter you might be able to get it moving internally. My iOS colleagues can submit private bug reports but chances are super low someone is ever looking at it. There's no community around it, it seems.
- walteweiss 3y ago
  What about the difference in pay checks and difficulty of the development? E.g. I know many iOS developers that are, how to say that, very far from being techy, geeky or whatever name we’d use for the community. Some of them aren’t even aware about what git is (yet they use it somehow), but their pay check way higher than the one Android developers have. Also (if they work for a company) they’re given all the needed devices (e.g. a MacBook Pro, iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad, if needed). I haven’t seen an Android developer that is treated like that. And for me it looks like Android developers need to know way more, yet they’re under appreciated.
- gumby 3y ago
  Most of the complaints about allow are just flaming, but this is straight, legit criticism. I don’t understand why Apple has chronically been so terrible towards developers. They need them!
saagarjha 3y ago
> We always celebrate each Android release with a statue. I remember them arriving by truck to the Mountain View office, and Tracey Cole (Android’s first administrative assistant) would send a message to everyone in the building asking for help to unload it. Then the next year, we’d add another statue and continue to just find space on the lawn. Pretty quickly it got crowded and we didn't know what to do with all these statues! I'm happy to report we've now found a good home for them in Mountain View, and that we have continued our tradition of statue unveilings with each release. It is quite unfortunate that they’re no longer publicly accessible :(
rtpg 3y ago
Android existing is obviously good but I still wonder about the original sin of it being Java based. Latency on so many things always gets me (I still remember how an iPhone SE would routinely outperform a top of the line Galaxy for Google Maps), and I know “Java slow” is more of a meme than anything but I can’t help but imagine that it must affect every project (especially vendor stuff which might be competently made but not made with performance in mind)
- squarefoot 3y ago
  Lazy management searching for the most used language back then and not willing to invest in finding what would have been the best technical solution, no matter the performance drawbacks. As a result, security is still a myth and Android can only dream the low latency performance of other platforms for example when making music.
  - rtpg 3y ago
    Is there really no out nowadays? I guess games get to just take control of the entire system and solve things that way?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      You can incorporate native code into Android applications, but it's kind of ugly AIUI

47 points by lawgimenez 3y ago

TIL HTC Dream was called T-Mobile G1 in the States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream

archeantus 3y ago
My first smartphone. I started working at Tmobile in college as a sales rep when the G1 came out and I immediately was smitten with it. The functionality and experience was so much better than anything that BlackBerry had to offer, yet all of the seasoned reps scoffed at the G1 and continued to push and sell Blackberries. They thought I was crazy to carry and sell the G1. I think I got the last laugh.
- plugin-baby 3y ago
  How was UI responsiveness vs blackberry? And keyboard?
  - codethief 3y ago
    Not OP and I also never used a Blackberry but, man, the G1's keyboard was so so good! I could (and did) type for hours and could even type blindly (without even looking at the screen).
cglong 3y ago
One of the understated innovations of the iPhone was bringing awareness of the phone manufacturer to the masses, disrupting the relationship between customer and carrier. Android provided (and still does) a way for carriers to regain some control in that relationship. One example is Verizon's Droid campaign, which was so successful that "Droid" became a genericized trademark for any Android phone for a decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Droid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Droid
- petepete 3y ago
  This is incredibly US-centric, the line between manufacturer and carrier is much clearer just about everywhere else in the world.
  - cglong 3y ago
    Well yeah, the comment I was replying to was about the US :D
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Manufacturer and career relationship was very strong in Japan ,because career was a new service developer and order what to make. iPhone did great here too.
    - numpad0 3y ago
      Still is. iPhone never allowing carrier-customized ROM changed everything. At least now we can disable ~stupid~ sheep wandering homescreen on localized Android phones.

anotheronelost 3y ago

Missing from 2014: pushed out Lollipop release to OG Nexus tablets, destroying performance, leaving only those technical enough to downgrade with any way to keep using the devices. 2023: pushed out Android 14 update, removing access to any additional profiles used on the devices. TBF they still have time to deal with this one, but their response so far has been terrible. And yet I still buy the damn things because there's no suitable alternative for me (ios doesn't have fdroid, netguard, non safari browsers etc.).

psbp 3y ago
Android 14 has been a buggy mess for me on the Pixel 7 Pro. It's confounding that Google is still pushing out buggy Android releases.
- shric 3y ago
  I upgraded to 14 on my Pixel 7 Pro a few days ago and didn't notice any problem so far. What are the worst issues I am likely to encounter?
  - dataflow 3y ago
    > What are the worst issues I am likely to encounter? Complete loss of data. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/android-14s-ransomware-data-storage-bug-locks-out-users-remains-unfixed/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/android-14s-ransomwa... Back up your data while you can.
    - codethief 3y ago
      Oh fuck me. Given that I'm on automatic updates and the update has already been downloaded, next time I reboot my phone it will switch to Android 14 automatically. :( (And yup, I'm using work profiles and all that.)
      - dataflow 3y ago

hulitu 3y ago

> our mission has always been to bring computing to everyone Yet if you try to do computing on Android, you hit a wall: file access is absymal from a user point of view (virtual folders ?). Text editors are terrible. The only thing existing are some BASIC interpreters, terrible to use. Combine this with the unaccessible GUI (small scroll bars, widgets too big or too small) and everything tells you to go away and never look back. Android is a computing device, in the same way your microwave is a computing device.

kome 3y ago
android and ios are mainly for consumption and surveillance... not creation.
kaba0 3y ago
As opposed to what? Your Linux desktop that will readily allow sending your browser cache, ssh keys, family photos to anyone with a simple ‘npm install’, nothing at all preventing it? Also, if you call that GUI inaccessible, you write from a place of privilege: mobile platforms absolutely beat the shit out of any desktop computer on accessibility count, hands down, any people with some kind of disability will tell you as much. There are negatives, but also, all around mobile OSs are a newer generation of OSs, that fixes many problems of their forefathers. To not call them computing devices is just unreasonable.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
  > Your Linux desktop that will readily allow sending your browser cache, ssh keys, family photos to anyone with a simple ‘npm install’, nothing at all preventing it? That's why everyone is pushing for development in containers..
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Containers are not sandboxes at all!
    - 3y ago

jhatemyjob 3y ago

I wouldn't say 15 years, the HTC Dream / G1 / whatever you wanna call it was a flop. The first real Android phones came out in 2009

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

carstenhag 3y ago

With all its flaws and lets say "quirks" because we are doing with Google here, I am happy to be an android developer and make good money with it (Germany). I usually compare my situation with my iOS colleagues. When I find a bug or documentation issue in a Google library that is still maintained properly, after creating a bug on their issue tracker, you usually get a real person to properly analyze your issue within 1 month, maybe it's even fixed in that timeframe if you are lucky. Sometimes you think a library is maintained and officially it is so, but they say development has stopped because of other priorities. Or "basic" features take years to be implemented. If you know the right person on Twitter you might be able to get it moving internally. My iOS colleagues can submit private bug reports but chances are super low someone is ever looking at it. There's no community around it, it seems.

walteweiss 3y ago
What about the difference in pay checks and difficulty of the development? E.g. I know many iOS developers that are, how to say that, very far from being techy, geeky or whatever name we’d use for the community. Some of them aren’t even aware about what git is (yet they use it somehow), but their pay check way higher than the one Android developers have. Also (if they work for a company) they’re given all the needed devices (e.g. a MacBook Pro, iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad, if needed). I haven’t seen an Android developer that is treated like that. And for me it looks like Android developers need to know way more, yet they’re under appreciated.
gumby 3y ago
Most of the complaints about allow are just flaming, but this is straight, legit criticism. I don’t understand why Apple has chronically been so terrible towards developers. They need them!

saagarjha 3y ago

> We always celebrate each Android release with a statue. I remember them arriving by truck to the Mountain View office, and Tracey Cole (Android’s first administrative assistant) would send a message to everyone in the building asking for help to unload it. Then the next year, we’d add another statue and continue to just find space on the lawn. Pretty quickly it got crowded and we didn't know what to do with all these statues! I'm happy to report we've now found a good home for them in Mountain View, and that we have continued our tradition of statue unveilings with each release. It is quite unfortunate that they’re no longer publicly accessible :(

rtpg 3y ago

Android existing is obviously good but I still wonder about the original sin of it being Java based. Latency on so many things always gets me (I still remember how an iPhone SE would routinely outperform a top of the line Galaxy for Google Maps), and I know “Java slow” is more of a meme than anything but I can’t help but imagine that it must affect every project (especially vendor stuff which might be competently made but not made with performance in mind)

squarefoot 3y ago
Lazy management searching for the most used language back then and not willing to invest in finding what would have been the best technical solution, no matter the performance drawbacks. As a result, security is still a myth and Android can only dream the low latency performance of other platforms for example when making music.
- rtpg 3y ago
  Is there really no out nowadays? I guess games get to just take control of the entire system and solve things that way?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    You can incorporate native code into Android applications, but it's kind of ugly AIUI