The very first initial build of Android started developing sometime in 2003 when feature phones were still mainstream. While today we know it as the most popular operating system for smartphones, it wasnât the case in the early/late 2000s when the operating system was still in its nascent stages. While it was still being developed in secret, the operating system catered to popular phones at the time, albeit for phones that physical buttons and keypads. In fact, Android did not support touch screen interactions until the first iPhone launched in 2007. 

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We know this thanks to documents made public from Apple and Samsungâs patent trial which detailed how Android worked at the time. In the specification sheet from the trial, Google clearly stated that âTouch screens will not be supported.â This document by Google was distributed to potential hardware manufacturers including Samsung that stated: "The product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption.â The document was shared prior to the first iPhoneâs launch in 2006.

âHowever, there is nothing fundamental in the product's architecture that prevents the support of touchscreens in the future,â Google added.

© Apple

The very first iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs in January 2007 which showed a radical new phone that was mostly made up of screen and metal. The phone was aptly called âiPhoneâ and it was Appleâs way to showcase its version of the touchscreen control. Touchscreen phones existed before the first iPhone however the experience was not as cohesive as the iPhone. It was the first phone that was fully controllable by the touch screen thanks to Appleâs custom operating system for the device. 

© EverythingApplePro

At the same time, Android prototypes looked nothing like the iPhone as they resembled BlackBerry smartphones with small screens and a QWERTY keypad. The first commercially available Android smartphone i.e. the HTC Dream or T-Mobile G1 launched in 2008 with physical buttons and no touchscreen support even though it had a 3.2-inch touchscreen display. However, as soon as the first iPhone became a great success, we saw Android transform its interface and basic functions to support touchscreens. If it werenât for the iPhone, we would have never really seen Android-based touch screen phones as early as we did.  

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