In 2007 they focus of Android changed drastically.
This was before iPhone: "2007’s pre-M3 version of Android; the Google Sooner" [1]
After they saw the iPhone keynote though:
--- start quote ---
Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’”
“What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.”
...
On the day Jobs announced the iPhone, the director of the Android team, Andy Rubin, was six hundred miles away in Las Vegas...
Rubin was so astonished by what Jobs was unveiling that, on his way to a meeting, he had his driver pull over so that he could finish watching the webcast.
“Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.”
...
Within weeks the Android team had completely reconfigured its objectives.
This was before iPhone: "2007’s pre-M3 version of Android; the Google Sooner" [1]
After they saw the iPhone keynote though:
--- start quote ---
Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’”
“What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.”
...
On the day Jobs announced the iPhone, the director of the Android team, Andy Rubin, was six hundred miles away in Las Vegas...
Rubin was so astonished by what Jobs was unveiling that, on his way to a meeting, he had his driver pull over so that he could finish watching the webcast.
“Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.”
...
Within weeks the Android team had completely reconfigured its objectives.
--- end quote ---
[1] https://9to5google.com/2012/05/05/2007s-pre-m3-version-of-an...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d...