There are somewhere around 1.5 billion Android devices in use around the world, on more than 25,000 different models of smartphones and tablets -- and every day roughly one million new Android devices come online.
That's not bad considering the 1.0 version of Android only appeared in September 2008 (Google had originally acquired Android back in 2005). Since then there have been 11 more distinct versions of the mobile operating system taking it slighty confusingly up to version 7.0, with 8 on the way.
Along the way Google's mobile device operating system has continued to evolve (and generate some controversy: Steve Jobs famously dubbed it a 'stolen product') and picked up cutesy confectionary codenames for new releases (we're currently on Nougat) along the way.
Google's masterstroke was making Android available to hardware manufactures for free so long as they included Google's services including search: as a result the smartphone market is a two-horse race between Android and iOS.
The search giant isn't interested in making money off hardware but is very keen to keep us using its search and mail and maps: Google apparently has generated more than $22bn in profit on $31bn in revenue from the operating system (and isn't pleased that figure was disclosed).
Take our tour of Android, from its very first iterations up to the latest look and feel.
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