Celebrate! 11 years ago today, the first Android beta launched

On November 5, 2007, Andy Rubin and his team at Google launched the first beta release of Android. That means today is the eleventh anniversary of Android’s public debut!

It wouldn’t be until September of 2008 before the first commercial release of Android would see the light of day, so you’re forgiven if you didn’t use Android prior to then. However, if you’re looking for an excuse to party today (and who isn’t always looking for excuses to party?), you can go ahead and treat this as Android beta’s eleventh birthday.

November 5, 2007, was also a big deal because on that same date, the Open Handset Alliance made its debut as well. This consortium of various big names in tech — including Google, Samsung, HTC, T-Mobile, Qualcomm, and more — came together to develop open standards within mobile technology. Android was a big part of that open source commitment, and the software remains open source to this day.

As mentioned, the first commercial release of Android dropped alongside the T-Mobile G1 (a.k.a. the HTCDream) on September 23, 2008. We here at Android Authority celebrated this date by talking about just how awesome the T-Mobile G1 was when it landed, as well as discussing the features within Android 1.0 which we still use today. Give those a read if you missed them!

Finally, if you want to read a bit about just how smart of a decision it was when Google purchased Android in July of 2005, read our article here which goes in-depth with Google’s greatest acquisition.

Sound off in the comments with any favorite memories you have using Android!

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