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Comment by geuis | Hacker News Reader

Android was released September 20, 2008. The first iPhone, thus iOS, was released June 27, 2007. I fail to see how Android predates iOS by years.

*Edit for folks who are voting this down:

I am not making any kind of argument in favor of one platform or another. I am simply commenting on what was said in the parent comment.

The release dates are simple fact. Go to Wikipedia like I did and find it for yourself. Apple got to the market over a year before Google released its first product based on Android.

The first version of iOS was in development for a long time, as was the first version of Android, before the world ever really got to see them. Thus, saying that Android was in development years before iOS implies that iOS was some last minute project Apple threw together. It's simply not true in either case.

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> Android was released September 20, 2008. The first iPhone, thus iOS, was released June 27, 2007. I fail to see how Android predates iOS by years.

Google bought Android (the company, whose sole purpose was to make the corresponding OS and sell itself) in 2005. Therefore Android existed long before the unveiling of iPhone in 2007.

> The release dates are simple fact.

Yes. I was not, however, talking about release date but about existence. This could have been clearer. The first public/commercial Android release followed iPhone by a year (and significant reworks, see... everything following the parenthesized section of my original comment).

> The first version of iOS was in development for a long time, as was the first version of Android, before the world ever really got to see them. Thus, saying that Android was in development years before iOS implies that iOS was some last minute project Apple threw together. It's simply not true in either case.

That is not even remotely close to what I stated. What I stated was that Android's existence predates iPhone's unveiling by years. At no point did I say (or even imply) anything about iOS's development period.

What Google bought in 2005 was not much more than a white paper and a team.

Even if that's the case, they did not sat in a room for 2 years waiting for the iPhone release, then suddenly shouted "let's clone this thing!"

(Yes, I know that's what Steve Jobs believed.)

Google didn't wake up on June 28th 2007 and say, "Shit, we'd better make a phone OS", and then release it 15 months later.

Both were under development for years before they were released. The idiots who think Android is just an iOS clone, forget this point.

No one is making any kind of argument that Android is an iOS clone. At least I'm not.

Yes, both were in development for years before the world got to see anything. To the original point of my comment, though, Android didn't predate iOS by years as the parent comment says. That comment implies that iOS copied from Android, which I am refuting.

"predates the iPhone's unveiling by years"

The word you've missed is "unveiling". He did not claim that Android came before iOS, but that it was under development for long before iOS was unveiled.

EDIT: The point that you're refuting was never made. He simply said that Android would still have existed, even if iOS hadn't. And to prove that point, he correctly stated that Android was under development for a long period of time before iOS was unveiled

Yeah but Android used to look like this before the iPhone was unveiled.

http://news.cnet.com/i/ne/p/2008/android_prototype_550x385.j...

Incorrect. That image is banded around just to serve a particular viewpoint. There was already a capacitive touchscreen android device in the prototype stages at the same time. Look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

I don't think so.

You can think whatever you want. Fact is fact.

it's not fact. you're deluding yourself.

You're not making a very convincing argument.

Correct... That isn't being disputed. The comment was:

"While Android would definitely exist (it predates the iPhone's unveiling by years) it would be a very, very different beast."

The "controversy" is around the claim of Android existing before iOS. That claim wasn't even made though if you read that comment correctly and notice the word "unveiling"

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