Short answers, pulled from the story.
Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, in October 2003 by Andy Rubin and Chris White, with Rich Miner and Nick Sears joining later. The company originally set out to build an operating system for digital cameras called FotoFrame before pivoting to phones in April 2004.
Google acquired Android Inc. in July 2005 for at least $50 million. In 2010, Google's then-vice president of corporate development, David Lawee, called it Google's best deal ever.
The first commercially available Android phone was the HTC Dream, also known as the T-Mobile G1, announced on the 23rd of September 2008. Android was introduced that same day at a press conference inside a New York City subway station.
After the first two versions were internally codenamed Astro Boy and Bender, licensing issues led Google to name releases after desserts and sugary treats in alphabetical order, starting with Petit Four, Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, and Froyo. Google ended the practice on the 22nd of August 2019, branding Android Q as Android 10 because it said the dessert names were not inclusive to international users.
Android has over three billion monthly active users and accounts for 46 percent of the global operating system market. It has been the most used operating system worldwide on smartphones since 2011 and has the largest installed base of any operating system.
At its core, Android is the Android Open Source Project, free and open-source software licensed primarily under the Apache License. However, the Android name and logo are trademarks of Google, and most devices run Google's proprietary version with closed-source software such as Google Mobile Services preinstalled.
The latest version is Android 16, released on the 10th of June 2025.
Yes. The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures revealed in September 2013 that the NSA and GCHQ could access user data on Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices, and Vault 7 documents dated 2013 to 2016 detailed the CIA's ability to compromise most smartphones. In 2021, researchers also reported the Pegasus spyware, which could infect Android and iOS phones and exfiltrate data, track locations, and activate the camera and microphone.