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Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System
In 2004, Android was two people who wanted to build camera software. But they couldn't get investors interested. Today, Android is a large team at Google, shipping an operating system (including camera software) to over three billion devices worldwide.
This is the inside story, told by the people who made it happen.
“What are the essential ingredients that lead a small team to build software at the sheer scale and impact of Android? We may never fully know, but this first person account is probably the closest set of clues we have.”
–Dave Burke, VP of Android Engineering
“Androids captures a strong picture of what the early development of Android, as well as the Android team, was like.”
–Dianne Hackborn, Android Framework Engineer
“Androids is the engaging tale of a motley group of coders with a passion to make insanely great products who banged out the operating system when that idea seemed nuts.
True to his geek genes, Chet Haase tells this remarkable tale of technical and business success from the trenches, an inspiring, massive collective effort of dozens of programmers who flipped their seemingly late timing to their advantage, and presaged a generation of platform builders. Read Androids to discover what it takes to create a hot tech team that shipped a product running today on more than 3 billion devices.”
–Jonathan Littman, co-author of The Entrepreneurs Faces: How Makers, Visionaries and Outsiders Succeed, and author of The Fugitive Game
This is the inside story, told by the people who made it happen.
“What are the essential ingredients that lead a small team to build software at the sheer scale and impact of Android? We may never fully know, but this first person account is probably the closest set of clues we have.”
–Dave Burke, VP of Android Engineering
“Androids captures a strong picture of what the early development of Android, as well as the Android team, was like.”
–Dianne Hackborn, Android Framework Engineer
“Androids is the engaging tale of a motley group of coders with a passion to make insanely great products who banged out the operating system when that idea seemed nuts.
True to his geek genes, Chet Haase tells this remarkable tale of technical and business success from the trenches, an inspiring, massive collective effort of dozens of programmers who flipped their seemingly late timing to their advantage, and presaged a generation of platform builders. Read Androids to discover what it takes to create a hot tech team that shipped a product running today on more than 3 billion devices.”
–Jonathan Littman, co-author of The Entrepreneurs Faces: How Makers, Visionaries and Outsiders Succeed, and author of The Fugitive Game
370 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 12, 2021
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1107 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
August 17, 2021
It's my dads book so...
December 4, 2021
This recent release has a lot of history, some technical details, and mini-bios of a HUGE cast of characters. Taken from interviews with some of them, this is a prettier version of history.txt - and not exactly fun to read.
The author acknowledges this in the introduction, and other reviewers seem to have given him a pass on that, rating the book 4 of 5 stars. I can't help but rate it as a book, where it falls short. It's not a good history (though it contains a lot of historical information) and it's not a good technical book (too technical for a lot of the audience, probably not specific enough for the rest). Yes, the author recognized that in the intro as well, saying he tried to make it accessible. My feet are firmly planted in the tech industry, which is why I read it - but this is far from accessible to non-coders.
Why not 1 star? It does contain some great history and some wry observations of the team and the work. Could be a good source for another book surveying the industry or the market. Wouldn't recommend reading it cover to cover, though.
The author acknowledges this in the introduction, and other reviewers seem to have given him a pass on that, rating the book 4 of 5 stars. I can't help but rate it as a book, where it falls short. It's not a good history (though it contains a lot of historical information) and it's not a good technical book (too technical for a lot of the audience, probably not specific enough for the rest). Yes, the author recognized that in the intro as well, saying he tried to make it accessible. My feet are firmly planted in the tech industry, which is why I read it - but this is far from accessible to non-coders.
Why not 1 star? It does contain some great history and some wry observations of the team and the work. Could be a good source for another book surveying the industry or the market. Wouldn't recommend reading it cover to cover, though.
September 15, 2021
Androids : The Team That Built the Android Operating System (2021) by Chet Haase is an excellent history of the team that built the remarkable Android Operating System. Everyday, like billions of other people on the planet I use my Android phone and it’s great to have a record like this of the fairly small team who created it. It’s not a business book but rather and engineering history book.
Haase is an engineer who worked on Android starting in 2010 and he got great access to the people involved in creating Android from 2004. Android started out as a company that was going to develop common software for cameras. Andy Rubin who had founded the mobile phone company Danger and Chris White who had worked on the WebTV project got together and started the company that would become Android. They quickly pivoted to working on a common OS for phones.
There are about 50 people mentioned in the book. Each gets a short bio, a description of how they got into the team and what they did. Most of the bios have when they learned to program. The book states that there were about 100 people working on Android when the 1.0 release came about.
Many of the people who worked on Android worked on WebTV, or at Palm, on BeOS or on Danger. It’s a really interesting just how many of them had worked together previously and how they had experience building an OS for a small device.
It is remarkable is how well the Google acquisition worked. The Android team seems to have been very wisely left alone by Google and they even had to work out ways to hire people to avoid Google’s normal hiring process of the time. Which is, in itself, also pretty interesting.
The book describes in detail many different parts of the Android system and who worked on them and how they came about. The Dalvik VM, the UI widgets, the home screen, the messaging program, the mail program for the device, the browser, the media toolkit, the basic drawing routines, the battery monitoring and more. The detail is definitely needed.
Android is often said to have changed from a Blackberry clone to an iOS clone. There is no doubt iOS affected Android, but as the book points Android changed to be more iOS like in 3 months because the design was so well done and the team was ready for changes to come.
It’s really interesting to ponder why Android came out of Silicon Valley and Google rather than from Nokia or RIM. The book describes how it came about and has an excellent series of quotes from the team about why it succeeded and they say “it was the right product at the right time”. But there are other factors that the book also points out.
Androids is an excellent read and a real credit to Haase. It does get a little repetitive in parts, but that’s part of recording where each person came from and which machine they learned to code on. Androids is very much worth a read for anyone interested in this kind of history and who wants to learn about the creation of a hugely successful operating system.
Haase is an engineer who worked on Android starting in 2010 and he got great access to the people involved in creating Android from 2004. Android started out as a company that was going to develop common software for cameras. Andy Rubin who had founded the mobile phone company Danger and Chris White who had worked on the WebTV project got together and started the company that would become Android. They quickly pivoted to working on a common OS for phones.
There are about 50 people mentioned in the book. Each gets a short bio, a description of how they got into the team and what they did. Most of the bios have when they learned to program. The book states that there were about 100 people working on Android when the 1.0 release came about.
Many of the people who worked on Android worked on WebTV, or at Palm, on BeOS or on Danger. It’s a really interesting just how many of them had worked together previously and how they had experience building an OS for a small device.
It is remarkable is how well the Google acquisition worked. The Android team seems to have been very wisely left alone by Google and they even had to work out ways to hire people to avoid Google’s normal hiring process of the time. Which is, in itself, also pretty interesting.
The book describes in detail many different parts of the Android system and who worked on them and how they came about. The Dalvik VM, the UI widgets, the home screen, the messaging program, the mail program for the device, the browser, the media toolkit, the basic drawing routines, the battery monitoring and more. The detail is definitely needed.
Android is often said to have changed from a Blackberry clone to an iOS clone. There is no doubt iOS affected Android, but as the book points Android changed to be more iOS like in 3 months because the design was so well done and the team was ready for changes to come.
It’s really interesting to ponder why Android came out of Silicon Valley and Google rather than from Nokia or RIM. The book describes how it came about and has an excellent series of quotes from the team about why it succeeded and they say “it was the right product at the right time”. But there are other factors that the book also points out.
Androids is an excellent read and a real credit to Haase. It does get a little repetitive in parts, but that’s part of recording where each person came from and which machine they learned to code on. Androids is very much worth a read for anyone interested in this kind of history and who wants to learn about the creation of a hugely successful operating system.
August 26, 2021
Enjoyable read.
Made me want to go back to writing Android apps again.
It's like "Dealers of Lightning" but without the interpersonal conflicts and drama. Suffers a bit from footnote-itis.
Made me want to go back to writing Android apps again.
It's like "Dealers of Lightning" but without the interpersonal conflicts and drama. Suffers a bit from footnote-itis.
September 6, 2021
A little bit repetitive about people from Danger, Palm, WebTV or Be, learning coding at young age, knowing each other at the previous company and got convinced from their previous colleagues to join the Android team and working on various parts of the project with long hours.
August 15, 2021
A great educational read that dives into the history of how the Android OS came to be - with stories from the creators of it all. Chet does an excellent job describing how Android succeeded and the elements that the engineers feel contributed to the success.
The book gives insights into the early days of developing the OS and some of the technical reasons why certain APIs exist. It can get a bit technical, but not to worry - there are a lot of footnotes describing the jargon that may be unfamiliar to you.
Along the way, the book has humourous quips, describing some of the little things that happened in the office at the time, quotes from the engineers and a few images of how the OS has evolved. Some parts had me smiling and laughing to myself, I managed to read it in a few days.
Recommended read for any techie!
The book gives insights into the early days of developing the OS and some of the technical reasons why certain APIs exist. It can get a bit technical, but not to worry - there are a lot of footnotes describing the jargon that may be unfamiliar to you.
Along the way, the book has humourous quips, describing some of the little things that happened in the office at the time, quotes from the engineers and a few images of how the OS has evolved. Some parts had me smiling and laughing to myself, I managed to read it in a few days.
Recommended read for any techie!
July 17, 2023
This book was highly recommended to me. I'm better for having read it. This book needs to exist because it's critically important documentation of the early years of Android.
However, this is not a very good book.
First, the book is written backwards. The end of the book should be the beginning because it motivates and sets the context. The iPhone feels like an elephant in the room until the end of the book where talking about the market and other handsets finally gets some discussion. Fine, you might say this is a book about Android, but keep reading.
Maybe ignoring the iPhone until the end is forgivable if we're reading chronologically. But, we are not chronological. By its own admission, the book jumps around in time. The organization of the book makes little sense and in my opinion actively works to make the subject matter less interesting in several ways. For another example, the text distracts itself with short biographies where it should be discussing a person's contribution to Android. It features many individuals that at times it feels like reading the phone book or perhaps the long begats sections of the Bible, leaving the main thrust long forgotten. I found myself skipping around to avoid losing the main ideas.
My final criticism is the book can't decide how technically literate the reader should be. At times it's extremely accessible. At other times, it reads like technical knowledge was expected but then definitions were tacked on with footnotes when the mistake was identified later. I would have preferred that the book lean more technical considering the subject matter, but at a minimum, consistency please.
I give this book three stars because of the significance of its content despite its awful presentation. It needs to exist. I'm glad that I read it. It's not presented very well at all.
However, this is not a very good book.
First, the book is written backwards. The end of the book should be the beginning because it motivates and sets the context. The iPhone feels like an elephant in the room until the end of the book where talking about the market and other handsets finally gets some discussion. Fine, you might say this is a book about Android, but keep reading.
Maybe ignoring the iPhone until the end is forgivable if we're reading chronologically. But, we are not chronological. By its own admission, the book jumps around in time. The organization of the book makes little sense and in my opinion actively works to make the subject matter less interesting in several ways. For another example, the text distracts itself with short biographies where it should be discussing a person's contribution to Android. It features many individuals that at times it feels like reading the phone book or perhaps the long begats sections of the Bible, leaving the main thrust long forgotten. I found myself skipping around to avoid losing the main ideas.
My final criticism is the book can't decide how technically literate the reader should be. At times it's extremely accessible. At other times, it reads like technical knowledge was expected but then definitions were tacked on with footnotes when the mistake was identified later. I would have preferred that the book lean more technical considering the subject matter, but at a minimum, consistency please.
I give this book three stars because of the significance of its content despite its awful presentation. It needs to exist. I'm glad that I read it. It's not presented very well at all.
June 13, 2023
Quite a boring read
I expected a lot from this book - the history of Android, design decisions the creators made, dynamics of the ecosystem (OEMs), impact on the world etc.
But it turned out to be a surface level documentary of who’s who in early Android development. With too many names thrown about for each topic, I quickly got lost. I wish the author spent more time on what went into some of the decisions the creators took, their implications etc. A lot of key topics - like making Android open source - are seemingly made overnight, the author does not convey the thoughts and weight of those decisions.
I also got the sense the author is looking at Android through rose-tinted glasses. Early android had significant performance issues, till late in its life there were UI glitches, comparisons with iOS for polish and consistency were abound, OEM partners did not make much money (except select few like Samsung), some OEM partners crashed out entirely like HTC, fragmented ecosystem with poor OS upgrade support from OEMs and carriers etc. None of these are talked about to give a balanced view of the state of affairs on Android.
Overall, mediocre read, 3/5
I expected a lot from this book - the history of Android, design decisions the creators made, dynamics of the ecosystem (OEMs), impact on the world etc.
But it turned out to be a surface level documentary of who’s who in early Android development. With too many names thrown about for each topic, I quickly got lost. I wish the author spent more time on what went into some of the decisions the creators took, their implications etc. A lot of key topics - like making Android open source - are seemingly made overnight, the author does not convey the thoughts and weight of those decisions.
I also got the sense the author is looking at Android through rose-tinted glasses. Early android had significant performance issues, till late in its life there were UI glitches, comparisons with iOS for polish and consistency were abound, OEM partners did not make much money (except select few like Samsung), some OEM partners crashed out entirely like HTC, fragmented ecosystem with poor OS upgrade support from OEMs and carriers etc. None of these are talked about to give a balanced view of the state of affairs on Android.
Overall, mediocre read, 3/5
October 2, 2022
Having worked on Android for ~10 years now, reading this book felt like reading the making of a superhero movie. You get to read the backstories of each of the _characters_, and the origin stories of the components you work on every day. [1]
[1]: Oh and, the footnotes in the book were really fun.
Certain things stood out:
- Android really built the perfect team to make this happen. It's incredible how small the team was before the 1.0 launch, and that is only possible if you hire right.
- Each person is a self-starter. If they wanted something, they made it happen.
- Almost every single person came with years of experience in exactly the domain they worked on, and/or companies that tried doing something similar before Android. Great people know other great people.
[1]: Oh and, the footnotes in the book were really fun.
Certain things stood out:
- Android really built the perfect team to make this happen. It's incredible how small the team was before the 1.0 launch, and that is only possible if you hire right.
- Each person is a self-starter. If they wanted something, they made it happen.
- Almost every single person came with years of experience in exactly the domain they worked on, and/or companies that tried doing something similar before Android. Great people know other great people.
September 9, 2021
A page-turner book on the origins of Android OS. It is a story of one of the most impactful software projects in the past two decades. The book is filled with quotes from the folks that were part of the journey. Chet did a great job interweaving stories with a healthy amount of wit to keep the book from being dry. If you want to learn how the Android sausage was made, this is a book for you.
September 20, 2022
An easy 5 star review for myself, as this was one of those books that I could not put down. This is an inside look at the founding of Android, the acquisition by Google, and the all-star team that made it happen. There's a decent level of technical information in this book, but it's not overly technical -- just enough to highlight some of the challenges and time/hardware constraints the team had to deal with at the time. A must read for anyone in tech!
October 24, 2022
Happy and sad at the same time. Happy that the book exists, and sad it got over.
Very grateful to Chet for capturing and telling the history of one of the most impactful pieces of technology of our time.
Very grateful to Chet for capturing and telling the history of one of the most impactful pieces of technology of our time.
August 5, 2024
This book was so interesting and well written. It was particularly fascinating because I work with a few of these people at my job, and I was unaware of some of the history, very cool to hear it laid out so clearly and nerd snipey!
I am pretty sure you could get into this book even if you’re not technical, they have plenty of footnotes to help along the way.
I am pretty sure you could get into this book even if you’re not technical, they have plenty of footnotes to help along the way.
January 18, 2022
An inspiring silicon valley tale - a must read for (an)droid heads, or people looking to start their produt or team-building journey.
December 10, 2022
If you are into IT/Tech History then this book is for you. :-)
Amazing ppl built amazing product/platform in time/resource constrained environment.
Amazing ppl built amazing product/platform in time/resource constrained environment.
February 11, 2022
It was fascinating to read the internals of how Android team was crunching towards 1.0 release. After reading the book I realized how much it takes to bring product of the Android scale to the world: team, timing, visionary leadership... Take one out and Android could be a footnote in the history books.
August 24, 2023
This is an eloquent and comprehensive history of the development of the android operating system. Haase covers everything from the technical decisions that set android apart (or caused roadblocks in development) to the impacts of individual personalities (and the corporate cultures they produced/existed them) on the evolution of the project. He makes sure the book is accessible to folks not in the technology industry without being too surface level.
As someone who briefly worked in operating systems at Google, it was interesting to see the foundational decisions, bureaucratic obstructions, and little rebellions the team experienced and took on, and I’m glad I took the time to read it and to reflect on my own experiences. That being said, I felt like this book was trying to do too much and so became a bit more of a “laundry list” of characters and anecdotes than a cohesive story, so I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who wasn’t specifically interested.
As someone who briefly worked in operating systems at Google, it was interesting to see the foundational decisions, bureaucratic obstructions, and little rebellions the team experienced and took on, and I’m glad I took the time to read it and to reflect on my own experiences. That being said, I felt like this book was trying to do too much and so became a bit more of a “laundry list” of characters and anecdotes than a cohesive story, so I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who wasn’t specifically interested.
December 12, 2021
The author feels like he has to introduce each and every developer who was part of the original android team, including a short blurb about their university and past experiences. It just takes away from the story overall of android, and is impossible to keep a track of if those characters are referenced later on. A lot of this could have been solved with better editing.
The book also does not have very many interesting insights which one might not already know if they’ve been reading about android on the news. I wish we got to know more about the specific business decisions regarding android, on how the Google Play services model works etc. Instead, we got a summary of features of Android 1.0
Finally, I wish the author at least addressed some of the controversy surrounding Andy Rubin as Rubin comes across as a technical genius in this book, and that is not how his history should be written. Definitely needs to be contextualised.
The book also does not have very many interesting insights which one might not already know if they’ve been reading about android on the news. I wish we got to know more about the specific business decisions regarding android, on how the Google Play services model works etc. Instead, we got a summary of features of Android 1.0
Finally, I wish the author at least addressed some of the controversy surrounding Andy Rubin as Rubin comes across as a technical genius in this book, and that is not how his history should be written. Definitely needs to be contextualised.
August 9, 2025
This book is a poorly edited disorganized mess, a dumpster of historic facts and interview transcripts.
Starting from scratch to build a brand-new graphical operating system and an entire application ecosystem should have been fascinating and exciting. Yet somehow, this book manages to make it repetitive, trivial, and boring -- which is quite an accomplishment. Unless you’re a die-hard Android superfan, I’d suggest skipping it; you’d get far more out of reading Wikipedia or watching a few videos on the subject.
The book’s biggest problem is that it has no narrative logic and no clear focus, it does not know how to selectively including details. Honestly, if it weren’t written a few years ago, I could believe it was generated by an AI transcribing interviews. Sorry, that's an insult to LLMs. An LLM could’ve done a much better job. The book essentially just dumps interview transcripts onto the page, sprinkles in a bit of background, and calls it a day—barely any real editing. Any halfway professional writer would’ve shaped this into a coherent narrative, much better than this disaster.
More than half the book is basically this pattern:
Feature X was important to Android because […]. A wrote most of the code for X. This is how A first got into programming […]. This is how he joined the Android team […]. A faced these challenges […]. Reflecting on X, he said “…”
I read carefully at the beginning of the book. By the middle third, I knew which paragraphs I should just skip. By the final third, I was basically just flipping pages, occasionally stopping if there is a keyword that catches my eye, like screening resumes. Yes, and that's because there is not much worth actual content in the book.
A prime example of the pointless detail overload:
Why? Nobody cares. These people aren’t important figures in the industry, most never appear again, and they have zero impact on the chapter’s events. You could delete them all and lose nothing. (If this is meant as acknowledgements, keep it in your internal docs—don’t dump it on readers.) As for the OHA member list, anyone who cares can look it up; rattling it off here just wastes time.
This problem is everywhere, but it’s especially bad in Parts III and IV. If I’d been the editor, I could’ve cut at least a third of the book.
Other issues:
Footnotes.
A good book makes the text clear enough that you only need the occasional footnote for background. Here, there are several footnotes per page—definitions, background tidbits, jokes that are not funny. It’s exhausting. The reading flow gets constantly interrupted, and for tech-savvy readers, most definitions are unnecessary. But since you can’t tell if a footnote is fluff or actually relevant without checking, you end up reading them anyway.
Chapter 14 (UI toolkit).
This chapter is frustrating to read. One section discusses the choice between single-threading and multi-threading, with internal disagreements—yet the only actual takeaway is “we ended up using single-threading.” Regular readers will have no idea what’s going on; readers interested in tech won’t find any real discussion (pros, cons, reasoning), and readers interested in project management won’t see the decision process. It tells the whole story without actually telling anything. Who is this chapter for?
And the worst part: the author has a bizarre obsession with technical details, but is terrified the reader won’t understand -- so, more footnotes. Early in the chapter, they say “An explanation of multi-threaded programming is … way beyond the scope of this book” -- then two pages later bring up member variables and try to explain in a footnote why they’re problematic in multithreaded programs. This is absurd. Non-technical readers were lost from the start; technical readers don’t need the footnote, and it still doesn’t explain things clearly. The result is a muddled mess that’s painful to read.
Other gripes, in brief:
The book mentions Google’s acquisition of Android several times, sometimes totally unrelated to the context—each time as if it’s brand-new information.
Chapters 30 and 31 both cover differences between Android’s work culture and Google’s overall culture. Why not put them together?
Chapter 34, “Work harder, not smarter”, could be summarized as: “Everyone was working overtime.” Seriously—you could make this up like a writing prompt and would likely fill the chapter better than the author did.
I was not expecting full-color inserts, but at least adjust the contrast on the images? Most of them are barely visible.
I wasn’t an early Android adopter, but I’ve been around since 2.2, spent plenty of time rooting, flashing ROMs, and browsing XDA. I was really looking forward to this book, but got a glorified transcript instead. I remember almost nothing from it. If a biographer had just told the story of Android’s acquisition, development, all the way leading to 1.0 launch in chronological order, sprinkling in technical detail only where needed, it could’ve been a fun and engaging read. The lack of deep technical discussion isn’t the problem—there’s enough online for that. The problem is this half-hearted attempt to mention technical stuff without ever saying anything meaningful.
P.S. This book came out in 2022. The Andy Rubin scandal and Google’s cover-up were widely reported back in 2018 (Google Walkouts). The author definitely knew. Avoiding the topic is one thing, but in Chapter 27, they quote someone paraphrasing Rubin: “I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I’m tired. I’m going to leave”—portraying it as voluntary. That’s twisting the truth. Sure, Google hasn’t been “Don’t be evil” for a long time, but I didn’t expect the author and PR department to be this shameless.
Starting from scratch to build a brand-new graphical operating system and an entire application ecosystem should have been fascinating and exciting. Yet somehow, this book manages to make it repetitive, trivial, and boring -- which is quite an accomplishment. Unless you’re a die-hard Android superfan, I’d suggest skipping it; you’d get far more out of reading Wikipedia or watching a few videos on the subject.
The book’s biggest problem is that it has no narrative logic and no clear focus, it does not know how to selectively including details. Honestly, if it weren’t written a few years ago, I could believe it was generated by an AI transcribing interviews. Sorry, that's an insult to LLMs. An LLM could’ve done a much better job. The book essentially just dumps interview transcripts onto the page, sprinkles in a bit of background, and calls it a day—barely any real editing. Any halfway professional writer would’ve shaped this into a coherent narrative, much better than this disaster.
More than half the book is basically this pattern:
Feature X was important to Android because […]. A wrote most of the code for X. This is how A first got into programming […]. This is how he joined the Android team […]. A faced these challenges […]. Reflecting on X, he said “…”
I read carefully at the beginning of the book. By the middle third, I knew which paragraphs I should just skip. By the final third, I was basically just flipping pages, occasionally stopping if there is a keyword that catches my eye, like screening resumes. Yes, and that's because there is not much worth actual content in the book.
A prime example of the pointless detail overload:
(Chapter 14) He knew people at Google like Bob Lee (who transferred to Android’s core libraries team around the same time), Dick Wall (Android developer relations), and Cedric Beust (writing the Android Gmail app).
(Chapter 20) Fred Quintana worked with Jeff Hamilton (Contacts app). Malcolm Handley worked with Cedric on Gmail. Debajit worked with Jack Veenstra on Calendar.
(Chapter 39) The Open Handset Alliance included carriers, hardware manufacturers, and software companies, such as: (then lists four bullet-point categories).
Why? Nobody cares. These people aren’t important figures in the industry, most never appear again, and they have zero impact on the chapter’s events. You could delete them all and lose nothing. (If this is meant as acknowledgements, keep it in your internal docs—don’t dump it on readers.) As for the OHA member list, anyone who cares can look it up; rattling it off here just wastes time.
This problem is everywhere, but it’s especially bad in Parts III and IV. If I’d been the editor, I could’ve cut at least a third of the book.
Other issues:
Footnotes.
A good book makes the text clear enough that you only need the occasional footnote for background. Here, there are several footnotes per page—definitions, background tidbits, jokes that are not funny. It’s exhausting. The reading flow gets constantly interrupted, and for tech-savvy readers, most definitions are unnecessary. But since you can’t tell if a footnote is fluff or actually relevant without checking, you end up reading them anyway.
Chapter 14 (UI toolkit).
This chapter is frustrating to read. One section discusses the choice between single-threading and multi-threading, with internal disagreements—yet the only actual takeaway is “we ended up using single-threading.” Regular readers will have no idea what’s going on; readers interested in tech won’t find any real discussion (pros, cons, reasoning), and readers interested in project management won’t see the decision process. It tells the whole story without actually telling anything. Who is this chapter for?
And the worst part: the author has a bizarre obsession with technical details, but is terrified the reader won’t understand -- so, more footnotes. Early in the chapter, they say “An explanation of multi-threaded programming is … way beyond the scope of this book” -- then two pages later bring up member variables and try to explain in a footnote why they’re problematic in multithreaded programs. This is absurd. Non-technical readers were lost from the start; technical readers don’t need the footnote, and it still doesn’t explain things clearly. The result is a muddled mess that’s painful to read.
Other gripes, in brief:
The book mentions Google’s acquisition of Android several times, sometimes totally unrelated to the context—each time as if it’s brand-new information.
Chapters 30 and 31 both cover differences between Android’s work culture and Google’s overall culture. Why not put them together?
Chapter 34, “Work harder, not smarter”, could be summarized as: “Everyone was working overtime.” Seriously—you could make this up like a writing prompt and would likely fill the chapter better than the author did.
I was not expecting full-color inserts, but at least adjust the contrast on the images? Most of them are barely visible.
I wasn’t an early Android adopter, but I’ve been around since 2.2, spent plenty of time rooting, flashing ROMs, and browsing XDA. I was really looking forward to this book, but got a glorified transcript instead. I remember almost nothing from it. If a biographer had just told the story of Android’s acquisition, development, all the way leading to 1.0 launch in chronological order, sprinkling in technical detail only where needed, it could’ve been a fun and engaging read. The lack of deep technical discussion isn’t the problem—there’s enough online for that. The problem is this half-hearted attempt to mention technical stuff without ever saying anything meaningful.
P.S. This book came out in 2022. The Andy Rubin scandal and Google’s cover-up were widely reported back in 2018 (Google Walkouts). The author definitely knew. Avoiding the topic is one thing, but in Chapter 27, they quote someone paraphrasing Rubin: “I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I’m tired. I’m going to leave”—portraying it as voluntary. That’s twisting the truth. Sure, Google hasn’t been “Don’t be evil” for a long time, but I didn’t expect the author and PR department to be this shameless.
November 25, 2022
TL;DR:
My video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0sEV...
Key Notes
Ideas
A tech genius can come from any background and education
A quote: That's part of this world: you learn probably more from the failures than you do from the successes
You can believe in your idea, but if you don't make others believe in it, it's close to impossible for it to become reality
When you don't have a cool name for your product, just randomly pick some village or county on the map of Iceland (ex: Dalvik)
Big companies will destroy `weird` ideas if they don't work as fast as possible. If you're lucky, you can become an enclave project in a big company and have multiple chances and a bigger budget.
My opinions about the book
I think the book is not something you want to read. Everything feels like it's a bit off. The structure, the writing, the quotes, the stories. The information is interesting, in some cases. But the reading is not pleasant and feels odd.
After reading this book, now I understand better why Android was unstable. It was just the result of an unstable idea, unstable team, unstable cooperation, and unstable people, and the only thing that was stable was short deadlines.
The concept of working for google doesn't seem so appealing now. It seems like there is a `culture` of being stressed and overworked. I don't wanna go deeper into this. It might have happened only in this Android team, or only in the author's close colleagues. But feeling the pressure of staying up late and overworking yourself is not something you want to be in.
I didn't like how everything was played by the ear. Any first idea they had, they went with it as `there was never enough time. He actually says that they always had this feeling of not having enough time.
I like how the team was built around smart people from different big companies. Everyone was having a great background. The author describes more than 30 people and in general, there was kind of the same story. Everyone was starting programming when they were very young. Went to university, got a degree, then a Ph.D., and then worked for big companies. There were, of course, exceptions, from people starting programming later in life, or people that didn't finish university. And I think that's a good thing.
Another great part was that the team consisted of people from the entire world. All continents had representatives. And now, as a result, Android is represented on all continents.
My video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0sEV...
Key Notes
Ideas
A tech genius can come from any background and education
A quote: That's part of this world: you learn probably more from the failures than you do from the successes
You can believe in your idea, but if you don't make others believe in it, it's close to impossible for it to become reality
When you don't have a cool name for your product, just randomly pick some village or county on the map of Iceland (ex: Dalvik)
Big companies will destroy `weird` ideas if they don't work as fast as possible. If you're lucky, you can become an enclave project in a big company and have multiple chances and a bigger budget.
My opinions about the book
I think the book is not something you want to read. Everything feels like it's a bit off. The structure, the writing, the quotes, the stories. The information is interesting, in some cases. But the reading is not pleasant and feels odd.
After reading this book, now I understand better why Android was unstable. It was just the result of an unstable idea, unstable team, unstable cooperation, and unstable people, and the only thing that was stable was short deadlines.
The concept of working for google doesn't seem so appealing now. It seems like there is a `culture` of being stressed and overworked. I don't wanna go deeper into this. It might have happened only in this Android team, or only in the author's close colleagues. But feeling the pressure of staying up late and overworking yourself is not something you want to be in.
I didn't like how everything was played by the ear. Any first idea they had, they went with it as `there was never enough time. He actually says that they always had this feeling of not having enough time.
I like how the team was built around smart people from different big companies. Everyone was having a great background. The author describes more than 30 people and in general, there was kind of the same story. Everyone was starting programming when they were very young. Went to university, got a degree, then a Ph.D., and then worked for big companies. There were, of course, exceptions, from people starting programming later in life, or people that didn't finish university. And I think that's a good thing.
Another great part was that the team consisted of people from the entire world. All continents had representatives. And now, as a result, Android is represented on all continents.
September 26, 2021
If you have any interest in the in-depth and behind the scenes history of the Android hardware and software development this is definitely a book worth reading.
As a fan of computer/engineering history books I fully expected to enjoy this book and I was not disappointed. A good book in this genre is not just about the product but also about the people behind the making of the product. This book does a great job providing lots of details on the many many people, some points of decision contention, inflection points in design, etc. from Android's prehistory through 1.0. It then is a pretty big whirlwind for the post-1.0 and post-G1 releases. That's fine because much of that is more well documented since the sausage is more made in the open at that point. You really get to see lots of inside details about how things unfolded, the culture, and the people who were doing the work. The footnotes and references are a wealth of information in and of themselves. I have many of them queued up for additional reading. He also provided lots of explanation of common terms software developers/engineers use that lay people may not be familiar with.
Why four not five stars? While I appreciated the information density and appropriate thoroughness it lacked the narrative quality I've seen in other books like this, specifically Brian Bagnall's series on the history of Commodore and the Amiga. There are narratives within vignettes but it wasn't tied together nearly as well. That didn't detract from the usefulness of the information or ability to follow along but it just didn't flow as well. I think part of the problem is that the engineering product and team size is so much larger. It could also be that with this only being 10-15 years ago not 30-50 years ago people aren't ready to divulge as much so openly and colorfully. My only other stylistic nit was that when introducing a new team member and briefly getting their history we often have to divine their age with ancillary details. Age isn't directly important but the state of computer science/computer engineering changed drastically over the last several decades and the ages experiences of the team span those decades so it would have provided good centering.
As a fan of computer/engineering history books I fully expected to enjoy this book and I was not disappointed. A good book in this genre is not just about the product but also about the people behind the making of the product. This book does a great job providing lots of details on the many many people, some points of decision contention, inflection points in design, etc. from Android's prehistory through 1.0. It then is a pretty big whirlwind for the post-1.0 and post-G1 releases. That's fine because much of that is more well documented since the sausage is more made in the open at that point. You really get to see lots of inside details about how things unfolded, the culture, and the people who were doing the work. The footnotes and references are a wealth of information in and of themselves. I have many of them queued up for additional reading. He also provided lots of explanation of common terms software developers/engineers use that lay people may not be familiar with.
Why four not five stars? While I appreciated the information density and appropriate thoroughness it lacked the narrative quality I've seen in other books like this, specifically Brian Bagnall's series on the history of Commodore and the Amiga. There are narratives within vignettes but it wasn't tied together nearly as well. That didn't detract from the usefulness of the information or ability to follow along but it just didn't flow as well. I think part of the problem is that the engineering product and team size is so much larger. It could also be that with this only being 10-15 years ago not 30-50 years ago people aren't ready to divulge as much so openly and colorfully. My only other stylistic nit was that when introducing a new team member and briefly getting their history we often have to divine their age with ancillary details. Age isn't directly important but the state of computer science/computer engineering changed drastically over the last several decades and the ages experiences of the team span those decades so it would have provided good centering.
October 29, 2022
Chet Hasen’s “Androids” is a great read in how things work. This is a story of the engineers who migrated across the Silicon stratosphere, working on Palm operating systems, WebTV products and eventually a little start-up bought out by Google. Smartphones are responsible for a dramatic shift in how our culture operates. Their function to connect us to through browsers, emails, calls, text, social media is described here.
One of the joys of the book is the story of discovery. Troubleshooting, tinkering, and reverse engineering are not just actions upon devices, they are the frameworks for problem solving. I wouldn't worry about getting lost in the stack here. There is a good mix of technology and business objectives shared here. I think the book is approachable for a non-techie but curious crowd. We explore why the team used Linux at first or why java’s bytecode approach was helpful, but we never walkthrough technical coding examples.
Hasen does a great job giving down to the modern explorers of the valley. It’s easy to lionize Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. But one should consider the impact of the cadre of engineers and technically literate teams. These groups work against the hindrances of financial budgets, timelines, hardware limitations and consumer demand, respect must be given to these modern explorers.
More-so than ever we look to our phones for the very knowledge we once found in books. It’s hard to deny the visual impacts of youtube training, or a linkedin course. We look to the phone. But I recommend this book as a reminder of what we won’t find in code or a programming class. May we never forget the creative spirit of the adventurous – those who explored technology's edge and ultimately transformed our modern world.
One of the joys of the book is the story of discovery. Troubleshooting, tinkering, and reverse engineering are not just actions upon devices, they are the frameworks for problem solving. I wouldn't worry about getting lost in the stack here. There is a good mix of technology and business objectives shared here. I think the book is approachable for a non-techie but curious crowd. We explore why the team used Linux at first or why java’s bytecode approach was helpful, but we never walkthrough technical coding examples.
Hasen does a great job giving down to the modern explorers of the valley. It’s easy to lionize Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. But one should consider the impact of the cadre of engineers and technically literate teams. These groups work against the hindrances of financial budgets, timelines, hardware limitations and consumer demand, respect must be given to these modern explorers.
More-so than ever we look to our phones for the very knowledge we once found in books. It’s hard to deny the visual impacts of youtube training, or a linkedin course. We look to the phone. But I recommend this book as a reminder of what we won’t find in code or a programming class. May we never forget the creative spirit of the adventurous – those who explored technology's edge and ultimately transformed our modern world.
August 20, 2021
Androids is unlike any “behind the scenes” tech book I’ve ever read—and I’ve read bunches. Chet Haase takes us through the creation of the world’s most popular smartphone operating system step-by-step, from the ground up, and in the process provides endlessly fascinating insights about how everything came together. He’s able to do this because Chet’s an insider himself, knowing all of the key actors first-hand, and is a respected engineering leader on the Android team. And that's the trade-off of this book; what you don’t get that a Steven Levy or Tracy Kidder offers in terms of writing experience, you make up for in terms of having an author who deeply understands the tech. (I.e., there’s nothing like that beautiful opening scene from a Soul of a New Machine about sailing, but there are a few chapters on the architecture of Android’s system framework.)
But this isn't a book for programmers only; Chet is careful to make all of the geeky stuff accessible for (relatively) general audiences. What you do get is a book that should appeal to technologists and enthusiasts who want a front-row seat to what happened, and that goes pretty deep technically, and illustrates how key decisions were made.
I know a lot of the folks in the story myself, but I learned a great deal reading the book, and very much enjoyed it.
(Note: I know Chet and received an advance copy of the book; I did my best to provide an honest review despite my bias.)
But this isn't a book for programmers only; Chet is careful to make all of the geeky stuff accessible for (relatively) general audiences. What you do get is a book that should appeal to technologists and enthusiasts who want a front-row seat to what happened, and that goes pretty deep technically, and illustrates how key decisions were made.
I know a lot of the folks in the story myself, but I learned a great deal reading the book, and very much enjoyed it.
(Note: I know Chet and received an advance copy of the book; I did my best to provide an honest review despite my bias.)
September 22, 2021
It has been really nice to learn the destination of some of the people in the BeOS team. The story itself is interesting and the book is good at times, but at other moments it drags a lot.
It makes me think of Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made as the author is not a professional writer... and it shows.
Some people compare it to Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age to which I can only say "no way". The impact of Xerox PARC on computing is in another league and cannot be compared to what the Android team developed and Michael A. Hiltzik is a far better writer than Chet Haase. But we must stress that Haase is also a far better developer than Hiltzik.
It makes me think of Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made as the author is not a professional writer... and it shows.
Some people compare it to Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age to which I can only say "no way". The impact of Xerox PARC on computing is in another league and cannot be compared to what the Android team developed and Michael A. Hiltzik is a far better writer than Chet Haase. But we must stress that Haase is also a far better developer than Hiltzik.
October 4, 2021
I appreciate all the efforts by the Author, Chet Haase.
First, this is not a technical book, I think I will get some technical material in the middle of the books, but this book is 100% on the platform's history. I am sharing a summary of my learning from this book; maybe that will help someone confused about reading this book.
. Android is started by engineers who already worked on other Mobile Operating Systems like Danger, BE, Palm, Microsoft mobile.
. All engineers mentioned in the book can access the computer in their early childhood, so they are geeky at college age.
. Google changed its hiring policy from generalist to specialist, ignoring college degree requirements for some people.
. Google makes Android independent, so Android works as a startup and not govern by corporate rules.
. As per my understanding iPhone also help Android because when iOS is launch, there is no other option for big telecommunication companies to sell something against iPhone.
. Samsung is the hero for Android OS's early success.
First, this is not a technical book, I think I will get some technical material in the middle of the books, but this book is 100% on the platform's history. I am sharing a summary of my learning from this book; maybe that will help someone confused about reading this book.
. Android is started by engineers who already worked on other Mobile Operating Systems like Danger, BE, Palm, Microsoft mobile.
. All engineers mentioned in the book can access the computer in their early childhood, so they are geeky at college age.
. Google changed its hiring policy from generalist to specialist, ignoring college degree requirements for some people.
. Google makes Android independent, so Android works as a startup and not govern by corporate rules.
. As per my understanding iPhone also help Android because when iOS is launch, there is no other option for big telecommunication companies to sell something against iPhone.
. Samsung is the hero for Android OS's early success.
January 12, 2023
This is one of the best books I've read that tells the story of the creation of a tech product. Admittedly there isn't a lot of competition, but it's comparable to Ken Kocienda's Creative Selection, having been written by one of the product's developers. I'd even venture to compare it favourably to the vaunted Soul Of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder, since much of the book is about the personalities of the project team. It's a shame that there aren't more books like these.
I would whole-heartedly recommend it to software developers, especially those who've written apps for Android. To be clear, this isn't a "how to" book, but it explains the rationale behind the design of the Android OS and provides a behind-the-scenes look at the development process behind the initial release of Android.
I'm not sure that less technical readers would get a lot out of it. The author does an admirable job of explaining the tech terminology, and doesn't dive into the details of software development, but it probably wouldn't hold the interest of readers who aren't Android fans.
I would whole-heartedly recommend it to software developers, especially those who've written apps for Android. To be clear, this isn't a "how to" book, but it explains the rationale behind the design of the Android OS and provides a behind-the-scenes look at the development process behind the initial release of Android.
I'm not sure that less technical readers would get a lot out of it. The author does an admirable job of explaining the tech terminology, and doesn't dive into the details of software development, but it probably wouldn't hold the interest of readers who aren't Android fans.
August 2, 2022
An interesting account on the creation and first release (and a bit of aftermath) of the now-ubiquitous mobile OS Android. The book goes to great lengths to explain the different parts of the OS and who built them, and it contains a huge number of footnotes, some witty, some informative.
The book is great both for its pure historical value, and for being a detailed description of the development of a (clearly successful) software project, offering a glimpse into the company politics of Google and interactions in and between the different teams.
It is perhaps to be lamented that, in describing the development of the different parts one by one, the chronology is a bit confusing, but I suppose perfect timing on the pre-release phase does not matter that much.
The book is great both for its pure historical value, and for being a detailed description of the development of a (clearly successful) software project, offering a glimpse into the company politics of Google and interactions in and between the different teams.
It is perhaps to be lamented that, in describing the development of the different parts one by one, the chronology is a bit confusing, but I suppose perfect timing on the pre-release phase does not matter that much.
September 13, 2021
The intent of the author in this work is to reconstruct the events that led to the creation of the Android Operating System. He wrote this book by interviewing the people who lead the development and creation of Android.
Although it might seem dry book (after all, the author is a programmer himself, working on Android), I found it an interesting read, that made me reflect what are the factors that lead to a hugely successful software project.
As a programmer and technology enthusiast, I wish there were more books like this, and I do hope the author will consider writing more about the topic in the future.
Although it might seem dry book (after all, the author is a programmer himself, working on Android), I found it an interesting read, that made me reflect what are the factors that lead to a hugely successful software project.
As a programmer and technology enthusiast, I wish there were more books like this, and I do hope the author will consider writing more about the topic in the future.
January 6, 2022
Surprised to have read it with a lot of nostalgia but also with the feeling that I was sharing the joy and the adrenaline of a group of people determined to solve some unfinished business because they have received another shot at it. Chet did an excellent job of letting each member of the team express their own perspective of how things were back when Android started.
Going through chapters I was really surprised to see how grounded the original engineers are, even though they definitely took pride in their success; especially those who had previously worked on not-so-successful similar products.
I've also found myself smiling sometimes at the painfully dad jokes of Chet.
Going through chapters I was really surprised to see how grounded the original engineers are, even though they definitely took pride in their success; especially those who had previously worked on not-so-successful similar products.
I've also found myself smiling sometimes at the painfully dad jokes of Chet.
September 18, 2021
Great window into the early days of Android
I'd call this peering through a window into that time, but not actually "being there." I think that's the nature of conducting different interviews from engineers who were there and collecting those anecdotes. Don't pick this up if you're expecting a narrative, or like a biography. It feels much more like grabbing a beer with the people who were there, and asking "So what was it like?" By that criteria, this is a great book! Shame that Mr. Haase wasn't able to get Andy Rubin to contribute.
I'd call this peering through a window into that time, but not actually "being there." I think that's the nature of conducting different interviews from engineers who were there and collecting those anecdotes. Don't pick this up if you're expecting a narrative, or like a biography. It feels much more like grabbing a beer with the people who were there, and asking "So what was it like?" By that criteria, this is a great book! Shame that Mr. Haase wasn't able to get Andy Rubin to contribute.
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