The Day Google Had to 'Start Over' on Android

Google was building a secret mobile product to fend off chief rival Microsoft. Then Apple announced the iPhone, and everything changed.

In 2005, on Google’s sprawling, college-like campus, the most secret and ambitious of many, many teams was Google’s own smartphone effort—the Android project. Tucked in a first-floor corner of Google’s Building 44, surrounded by Google ad reps, its four dozen engineers thought that they were on track to deliver a revolutionary device that would change the mobile phone industry forever.

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