Here’s what Android phones might have looked like without the iPhone - Digital Trends

2 years ago 40

Have you ever wondered what benignant of phones we would person contiguous if Apple didn’t present the iPhone to the world? Thanks to immoderate caller info from Android co-founder Rich Minder, we benignant of person an reply to that.

Miner wrote a Twitter thread Monday evening calling retired an mistake made successful an nonfiction published by Business Insider. He said that successful 2005, Google and Android — the second of whom was acquired by the erstwhile institution astatine the clip — were acrophobic astir Microsoft dominating mobile phones the aforesaid mode it dominated PCs with the motorboat of Windows Mobile. In response, Android pitched Sooner and Dream, 2 phones that would enactment arsenic “small computers successful your pocket, broadening entree and enriching their services with location.”

All on we were moving connected 2 phones, Sooner, much blackberry-like & Dream, touchscreen based. After the iPhone motorboat we did cancel Sooner to absorption connected Dream (eventually the Google G1) but its plan changed small from this rendering made 5 months earlier the iPhone launched. pic.twitter.com/lC8m0WolgE

— Rich Miner (@richminer) October 31, 2022

Miner shared a photograph of the render for Dream, which would yet spell connected to beryllium known arsenic the T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream. What’s absorbing is that this mentation of the G1 was created 5 months earlier the motorboat of the iPhone — and it shows a precise different-looking telephone compared to the last mentation of the G1. The G1 present shows a touchscreen that slides up to uncover a greenish QWERTY keyboard with a curve connected the side.

Unfortunately, Android was forced to cancel the Sooner telephone aft the iPhone launched successful 2007. As for the G1, Miner said the institution somewhat changed its plan to “appease” Steve Jobs, who wasn’t excessively blessed astir Android competing with Apple.

HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1 / HTC G1 - The archetypal android phone

The last redesign for the G1 became the T-Mobile exclusive HTC smartphone — and the archetypal Android smartphone connected the marketplace — called the HTC Dream (or T-Mobile G1, depending connected wherever you live), which was released successful September 2008. It got escaped of the elephantine instrumentality fastener connected the close and replaced it with a smaller trackball successful the mediate betwixt the call, home, return, and extremity buttons. The slider retained the touchscreen, but it was a small flatter than the archetypal design, and the buttons connected the QWERTY keyboard protruded a small more

The HTC Dream was sold extracurricular the U.S. successful white, whereas the T-Mobile G1 came successful black. While the archetypal plan for the G1 made it look much futuristic, the last plan was much applicable portion retaining the broadside curve. The Dream was discontinued successful 2010.