Google acquired Android Inc. on August 17, 2005, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of Google. The founder of Android Inc. like Rubin, Miner and White remained with the company after it was acquired by Google. After that, not much is known about the development of Android Inc., but a lot of assumption that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market with this action. At Google, the team led by Rubin began to develop mobile device platforms using the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to mobile device manufacturers and wireless carriers, with the promise that they provide a system that is flexible and can be updated. Google has chosen several partner companies software and hardware, as well as hinting to mobile operators that cooperation is open to anyone who wants to participate.
Speculation about Google's intention to enter the mobile communications market continues to grow until December 2006, the BBC and the Wall Street Journal reported that Google is working hard to include in the search engine applications and mobile devices. Various print and online media reported that Google is developing mobile devices with the Google brand. Some of them speculated that Google has determined the technical specifications, including mobile phone manufacturers and network operators . In December 2007, Information Week reported that Google had filed several patent applications in the field of mobile phones.
On November 5, 2007, the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) was established. OHA is a consortium of technology companies such as Google, mobile device manufacturers such as HTC, Sony and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint Nextel and T - Mobile, and chipset manufacturers like Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. OHA itself aims to develop open standards for mobile devices. At that time, Android was inaugurated as the first product ; a mobile device platform that uses the Linux kernel version 2.6. The first commercial mobile phone that uses the Android operating system was the HTC Dream, which launched on October 22, 2008.
In 2010, Google released the Nexus series ; smart phones and tablet devices with Android operating system produced by partner mobile phone manufacturers such as HTC, LG, and Samsung. HTC in collaboration with the release of Google's Nexus smart phone products first, the Nexus One. This series has been updated with newer devices, such as smart phones and tablet Nexus Nexus 4 10 manufactured by LG and Samsung. On March 13, 2013, Larry Page announced in his blog post that Andy Rubin has been moved from the Android division to work on new projects at Google. He was replaced by Sundar Pichai, who previously served as head of the division of Google Chrome, which is developing the Chrome OS.
Since 2008 , Android has gradually been doing some updates to improve the performance of the operating system , adding new features and fixing bugs found in previous versions . Each major version is released called alphabetically by the names of desserts or sugary snacks ; for example , version 1.5 was named Cupcake , which is then followed by versions 1.6 Donut . KitKat latest version is 4.4 , which was released on October 31, 2013 .