Andy Rubin, Creator Of Android, Leaves Google
According to the WSJ, Andy Rubin left Google after almost a decade of working for the company. He has been working at Google since 2005, when his company at the time, Android Inc., was acquired by the search giant. Rubin was in charge of Android until last year, when he was replaced as Android chief by Sundar Pichai, then the SVP of Chrome.
When Android Inc. was just a small start-up, Rubin was envisioning a world where the massive fragmentation in the mobile market caused by each smartphone OEM using its own incompatible or outdated operating system could be fixed by getting all OEMs to use a single, more advanced, operating system – Android.
This operating system caught Google's leaders' attention, as they were also frustrated with poor web experiences on mobile phones. In 2005, two years after Android Inc. was founded, Google acquired Rubin's company.
Andy Rubin understood that Android would have a much better chance to convince large smartphone manufacturers to adopt an OS that wasn't their own if another large company, such as Google, was in charge of it. With Google's nearly limitless resources, Android could become the most advanced mobile operating system.
With over one billion monthly active users, over 80 percent global market share, a great deal of advanced functionality, and with virtually all smartphone manufacturers having adopted Android (including Nokia at some point, even though it been historically hostile towards Android), one could say that Rubin's vision has been accomplished.
It's not clear, though, if Andy Rubin is leaving Google on good terms. When he was replaced by Sundar Pichai, there wasn't much information about why he stepped down from his position as Android boss, except for the fact that he was going to lead Google's robotics division.
Andy Rubin's admitted hobby has been building robots, and it was also thought that he has more of an entrepreneurial rather than a managerial spirit, so his departure from the Android division wasn't too much of a shock.
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Despite the fact that he seems to have had a good time running Google's advanced robotics division, though, Rubin appears ready to leave Google for good and start his own "incubator for hardware startups."
"Larry enabled the robotic effort to run exactly the way I wanted it to, and we made great progress in our first year," Rubin told the WSJ.
Larry Page also thanked him for his success with Android:
"I want to wish Andy all the best with what's next. With Android, he created something truly remarkable—with a billion plus happy users. Thank you."
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Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.
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HomeSkillenSlice Hard to believe that in only 10 years we went from ridiculous fragmentation, to seeing the best standardization and increased competition the mobile industry has ever experienced! Not to mention changing the very way we use our phones in our daily lives.Reply
Words cannot describe the impact Android has made to create a more uniform user experience across hundreds of millions of smartphone users worldwide :D
Ohh, and for creating competition against Apple, even if Apple has turned into a mehh brand throughout these years lol. -
velocityg4 "Hard to believe that in only 10 years we went from ridiculous fragmentation, to seeing the best standardization and increased competition the mobile industry has ever experienced! Not to mention changing the very way we use our phones in our daily lives.Reply
Words cannot describe the impact Android has made to create a more uniform user experience across hundreds of millions of smartphone users worldwide :D "
He failed in his main goal. Since there is massive fragmentation still. With every smartphone vendor making their own variant of Android. Dropping support after a few months and everyone on different versions of the OS. He should have made it so that the installer was universal like a Windows disc. Package it with all Android drivers then delete the unneeded ones after installation. With a central driver repository contributed to by the component manufacturers.
It also copied an experience from Apple. The GUI was vastly different on the first Google phone before iOS was released. -
robochump Would of been interesting to see what Andy Rubin was developing before iOS came out. Heard it was a copy of the BB OS. Also wonder how the outcome will be with Oracle since Andy/Google took code from JAVA to develop Android.Reply -
HomeSkillenSlice Reply14512446 said:"Hard to believe that in only 10 years we went from ridiculous fragmentation, to seeing the best standardization and increased competition the mobile industry has ever experienced! Not to mention changing the very way we use our phones in our daily lives.
Words cannot describe the impact Android has made to create a more uniform user experience across hundreds of millions of smartphone users worldwide :D "
He failed in his main goal. Since there is massive fragmentation still. With every smartphone vendor making their own variant of Android. Dropping support after a few months and everyone on different versions of the OS. He should have made it so that the installer was universal like a Windows disc. Package it with all Android drivers then delete the unneeded ones after installation. With a central driver repository contributed to by the component manufacturers.
It also copied an experience from Apple. The GUI was vastly different on the first Google phone before iOS was released.
While I do agree with the universal installer, something like that has got to be pretty difficult, otherwise they probably would have implemented it by now.
Not to mention the fact that there are more brands , processors and a greater variance of mobile chipsets from all kinds of different manufacturers (ex. Intel, Qualcomm, TSMC, NVIDIA etc.)
Whereas with the PC industry you don't have that kind of crazy fragmentation with the hardware. Instead you have 3 brands, each with different product portfolios, large portfolios but still only 3 companies nevertheless and still less of a product mix compared to the vastness of the mobile semiconductor industry.
I'd also assume that coding for ARM would be slightly if not greatly more difficult to program for due to the limited processing power compared to a conventional PC. Just my 2c.
Ohh and the whole Android copying Apple .. Come on .. Almost all phones were (and still are) giant rectangles and they had access to 2007 based ARM architectural processing technology , what could u expect .. A Windows interface? xD