Google’s Android has become one of the most widely used and well-known operating systems in the world. The latest stat has lifted the company to see daily activations rise to over 1.5 million per day. Over the past few years Google has certainly disrupted the mobile landscape and Android has claimed the title of being the world’s leading smartphone OS (based on market share).
It’s always cool to take a trip back to the roots of an idea. While we’ve already seen an early concept appear online by Dan Morrill, head of developer relations for Android, an interview with the New York Times today gives direct credit to Irina Blok, a former Google designer, for creating the Android robot logo. Blok worked at Google from September 2006 to September 2009.
The NYT report states that “As Google prepared to endorse the Android software platform for mobile devices, Blok and her design-team colleagues were told to create a look for the software – something that consumers could easily identify. The logo, she was told, should involve a robot… In the end, she took inspiration from a distinctly human source: the pictograms of the universal man and woman that often appear on restroom doors. She drew a stripped-down robot with a tin-can-shaped torso and antennas on his head.”
“We decided it would be a collaborative logo that everybody in the world could customize”
Since Android was going to be free and “open,” Blok also thought the Android design should follow the same route and allow the freedom for anyone to manipulate it, stating, “We decided it would be a collaborative logo that everybody in the world could customize. That was pretty daring.”
Here’s the original video that Google created to introduce Android – lots of ‘GPhone’ talk:
As for Canada, Rogers was the first carrier to bring Android here with the HTC Magic and HTC Dream – something they called the Android Revolution. Plus, below is a look at the Rubik’s Cube Android wall art that’s located inside Google Canada head office.
What was once a core focus on mobile phones, the Android OS has spread into TV’s, cameras, gaming consoles, tablets, glasses, cars and watches.
Source: New York Times, Irina Blok
Via: Phandroid
