The history of Android 3

From left to right: Android 0.9’s home screen, add drawer, and shortcut deletion interfaces.

Ron Amadeo

Android 0.9, Beta—hey, this looks familiar!

Six months after Milestone 5, in August 2008, Android 0.9 was released. While the Android 0.5 milestone builds were "early looks," by now 1.0 was only two months away. Thus, Android 0.9 was labeled "beta." On the other side of the aisle, Apple already released its second version of the iPhone—the iPhone 3G—a month prior. The second-gen iPhone brought a second-gen iPhone OS. Apple also launched the App Store and was already taking app submissions. Google had a lot of catching up to do.

Google threw out a lot of the UI introduced in Milestone 5. All the artwork was redone again in full-color, and the white square icon backgrounds were tossed. While still an emulator build, 0.9 offered something that looked familiar when compared to a released version of Android. Android 0.9 had a working desktop-style home screen, a proper app drawer, multiple home screens, a lot more apps, and fully functional (first-party only) widgets. Milestone 5 seemingly had no plan for someone installing more than 21 apps, but Android 0.9 had a vertically scrolling app drawer accessible via a gray tab at the bottom of the screen. Back then, the app drawer was actually a drawer. Besides acting as a button, the gray tab could be pulled up the screen and would follow your finger, just like how the notification panel can be pulled down. There were additional apps like Alarm Clock, Calculator, Music, Pictures, Messaging, and Camera.
This was the first build with a fully customizable home screen. Long pressing on an app or widget allowed you to drag it around. You could drag an app out of the app drawer and make a home screen shortcut or long press on an existing home screen shortcut to move it.
0.9 is a reminder that Google was not the design powerhouse it is today. In fact, some of the design work for Android was farmed out to other companies at the time. You can see one sign of this in the clock widget, which contains the text “MALMO," the home town of design firm The Astonishing Tribe.

Enlarge / The “Add to Home" dialog in Android 0.9.

Ron Amadeo

There were only three widgets: Clock, Picture frame, and Search. The Search widget didn't even have a proper icon in the list—it used the Picture icon. Perhaps the most interesting item here was a "Purchased pictures" option in the wallpaper choices—a leftover from the days when purchasing ringtones on a dumbphone was a common occurrence. Google was either planning on selling wallpapers, or it was already adding a carrier at some point. The company never went through with the plan.

Enlarge / A collection of widgets, an open folder, renaming a folder, and the copy/paste menu.

Ron Amadeo

The left screen, above, shows the widgets for Google Search and pictures. Search didn't do anything other than give you a box to type in—there was no auto complete or additional UI. Typing in the box and hitting "Go" would launch the browser. The bottom row of icons revealed a few options for "shortcuts" from the long press menu, which created icons that opened an app to a certain screen. Individual contacts, browser bookmarks, and music playlists were all shortcuts that could all be added to the home screen in 0.9.
"Folders" was an option under the shortcuts heading despite not being a shortcut to anything. Once a blank folder was created, icons could be dragged into it and rearranged. Unlike today, there was no indication of what was in a folder; it was always a plain, white, empty-looking icon.
0.9 was also the first Android version to have OS-level copy/paste support. Long pressing on any text box would bring up a dialog allowing you to save or recall text from the clipboard. iOS didn't support copy/paste until almost two years later, so for a while, this was one of Android's big differentiators—and the source of many Internet arguments.

Enlarge / From left to right: Android 0.9’s new menu, recent apps, power options, and lock screen.

Ron Amadeo

Android 0.9 was really starting to show its maturity. The home screen had a full set of menu items, including a settings option (although it didn't work yet) and a search button (because Google likes it when you search). The menu design was already in the final form that would last until Android 2.3 swapped it to black.
Long pressing on the hardware home button brought up a 3x2 grid of recent apps, a design that would stick around until the release of Android 3.0. Recent Apps blurred the exposed background, but that was strangely applied here and not on other popups like the "Add to home" dialog or the home screen folder view. The power menu was at least included in the blurry background club, and it was redesigned with icons and more commonly accepted names for functions. The power menu icons lacked padding, though, appearing cramped and awkward.
Android 0.9 featured a lock screen, albeit a very basic one. The black and gray lock screen had no on-screen method of unlocking—you needed to hit the hardware menu button.

Android 0.9 showing off a horizontal home screen—a feature that wouldn’t make it to later versions.

Ron Amadeo

While it's hard to separate emulator and OS functionality, Android 0.9 was the first version to show off horizontal support. Surprisingly, almost everything supported horizontal mode, and 0.9 even outperforms KitKat in some respects. In KitKat, the home screen and dialer are locked to portrait mode and cannot rotate. Here, though, horizontal support wasn't a problem for either app. (Anyone know how to upgrade a Nexus 5 from KitKat to 0.9?)
This screenshot also shows off the new volume design used in 0.9. It dumped the old bell-style control that debuted in Milestone 3. It was a massive, screen-filling interface. Eventually, the redesign in Android 4.0 made it a bit smaller, but it remained an issue. (It's extremely annoying to not be able to see a video just because you want to bump up the volume.)

The new notification panel, which ditched the application shortcut and added a top section.

Ron Amadeo

In just about every Android version, the notification panel gets tweaked, and 0.9 was no exception. The battery indicator was redrawn and changed to a darker shade of green, and the other status bar icons switched to black, white, and gray. The left area of the status bar was brilliantly repurposed to show the date when the panel was open.
A new top section was added to the notification panel that would display the carrier name ("Android" in the case of the emulator) and a huge button labeled "Clear notifications," which allowed you to finally remove a notification without having to open it. The application button was canned and replaced with the time the notification arrived, and the "latest events" text was swapped out for a simpler "notifications." The empty parts of the panel were now gray instead of white, and the bottom gripper was redesigned. The pictures seem misaligned on the bottom, but that was because Milestone 5's notification panel had white space around the bottom of the panel. Android 0.9 goes all the way to the edge.

Enlarge / The browsers of 0.9 and 0.5, showing the new, colorless menus.

Ron Amadeo

The browser now loaded an actual website for the home page instead of the locally stored faux-Google of Milestone 5. The WebKit version rose up to 525.10, but it didn't seem to render the modern Google.com search button correctly. All throughout Android 0.9, the menu art from Milestone 5 was trashed and redrawn as gray icons. The difference between these screens is pretty significant, as all the color has been sucked out.
The "more" list-style menu grew a little taller, and it was now just a plain list with no icons. Android 0.9 gained yet another search method, this time in the browser menu. Along with the home screen widget, home screen menu button, and browser homepage, that made four search boxes. Google never hid what its prime business was, even in its OS.

Enlarge / From left to right: Android 0.9’s browser showing off the zoom controls, find-in-page interface, browser windows, and the settings.

Ron Amadeo

Android 0.9 brought tons of browser improvements. The zoom controls were thankfully reworked from the crazy vertical controls to simpler plus and minus buttons. Google made the common-sense decision of moving the controls from the center of the screen to the bottom. In these zoom controls, the Android struggle with consistency became apparent. These appeared to be the only round buttons in the OS.
0.9's new "find in page" feature could highlight words in the page. But overall, the UI was still very rough—the text box was much taller than it should be, and the "done" button with a checkbox was a one-of-a-kind icon for this screen. "Done" was basically a "close" button, which means it should probably have been a right-aligned "X" button.
The main OS didn't have a settings screen in this build, but the browser finally had its own settings screen. It featured desktop-style options for pop ups, javascript, privacy and cookies, saved passwords and form data. There was even Google Gears integration (remember Google Gears?).

Enlarge / The dialer and in-progress call screen with the menu open.

Ron Amadeo

Dialer and Contacts in Android 0.9 were actually the same app—the two icons just opened different tabs. Attaching contacts to the dialer like this suggested the primary purpose of a smartphone contact was still for calls, not to text, e-mail, IM, or look up an address. Eventually Google would fully embrace alternative smartphone communications and split up contacts and dialer into separate apps.
Most of the dialer weirdness in Milestone 5 was wiped out in Android 0.9. The "minimizing" tabs were replaced with a normal set of dark/light tabs. The speech bubble backspace button was changed to a normal backspace icon and integrated into the number display. The number buttons were changed to circles despite everything else in the OS being a rounded rectangle (at least the text was vertically aligned this time). The company also fixed the unbalanced "one," "star," and "pound" keys from Milestone 5.
Tapping on the number display in Android 0.9 would start a call. This was important, as it was a big step in getting rid of the hardware "Call" and "End" keys on Android devices. The incoming call screen, on the other hand, went in the complete opposite direction and removed the on-screen “Answer" and “Decline" buttons present in Android 0.5. Google would spend the next few versions fumbling around between needing and not needing hardware call buttons on certain screens. With Android 2.0 and the Motorola Droid, though, call buttons were finally made optional.
All of the options for the in-call screen were hidden under the menu button. Milestone 5 didn't support a proximity sensor, so it took the brute force route of disabling the touch screen during a call. 0.9 was developed for the G1, which had a proximity sensor. Finally, Google didn't have to kill the touch sensor during a call.

Enlarge / The individual contacts screen and edit contacts screen for Android 0.9 and 0.5.

Ron Amadeo

Milestone 5 had confusing labels for some contact information, like e-mail only being labeled "primary" instead of something like “primary e-mail." Android 0.9 corrected this with horizontal headers for each section. There were now action icons for each contact type on the left side, too.
The edit contact screen was now a much busier place. There were delete buttons for every field, per-contact ringtones, an on-screen "more info" button for adding fields, a checkbox to send calls directly to voicemail, and "Save and "discard changes" buttons at the bottom of the list. Functionally, it was a big improvement over the old version, but it still looked very messy.

Enlarge / The main alarm screen, setting an alarm, the calculator, and the calculator advanced functions screen.

Ron Amadeo

Android 0.9 gave us the first look at the Alarm and Calculator apps. The alarm app featured a plain analog clock with a scrolling list of alarms on the bottom. Rather than some kind of on/off switch, alarms were set with a checkbox. Alarms could be set to repeat at certain days of the week, and there was a whole list of selectable, unique alarm sounds.
The calculator was an all-black app with glossy, round buttons. Through the menu, it was possible to bring up an additional panel with advanced functions. Again consistency was not Google’s strong suit. The on-press highlight on the pi key was red—in the rest of Android 0.9, the on-press highlight was usually orange. In fact, everything used in the calculator was 100 percent custom artwork limited to only the calculator.

Enlarge / Google Maps with the menu open and the new directions interface.

Ron Amadeo

Google Maps actually worked in Android 0.9—the client could connect to the Google Maps server and pull down tiles. (For our images, remember that Google Maps is cloud based. Even the oldest of clients will still pull down modern map tiles, so ignore the actual map tiles pictured.) The Maps menu got the same all-gray treatment as the browser menu, and the zoom controls were the same as the browser too. The all-important "My Location" button finally arrived, meaning this version of Maps supported GPS location.
The directions interface was revamped. The weird speech bubbles with misaligned plus buttons were swapped out for a more communicative bookmark icon, the swap field button moved to the left, and the go button was now labeled "Route."

Enlarge / The Google Maps layers selector, search history, and the now-broken street view mode.

Ron Amadeo

"Layers" was renamed "Map Mode" and switched to a radio button list. Only one map type was available at a time—you couldn't see traffic on the satellite view, for instance. Buried in the menu was a hastily thrown together search history screen. History seemed like only a proof-of-concept, with giant, blurry search icons that rammed up against search terms on a transparent background.
Street View used to be a separate app (although it was never made available to the public), but in 0.9 it was integrated into Google Maps as a Map Mode. You could drag the little pegman around, and it would display a popup bubble showing the thumbnail for Street View. Tapping on the thumbnail would launch Street View for that area. At the time, Street View showed nothing other than a scrollable 360 degree image—there was no UI on the interface at all.

Enlarge / Our first look at the Google Maps search interface. These shots show the search bar, the results in a list, the results in a map, and a business page.

Ron Amadeo

Android 0.9 also gave us our first look at the texting app, called "Messaging." Like many early Android designs, Messaging wasn't sure if it should be a dark app or a light app. The first visible screen was the message list, a stark black void of nothingness that looked like it was built on top of the settings interface. After tapping on “New Message" or one of the existing conversations, though, you were taken to a white and blue scrolling list of text messages. The two connected screens couldn’t be more different.

Enlarge / The SMS app’s chat window, attachment screen, chat list, and setting.

Ron Amadeo

Messaging supported a range of attachments: you could tack on pictures, audio, or a slideshow to your message. Pictures and audio could be recorded on the fly or pulled from phone storage. Another odd UI choice was that Android already had an established icon for almost everything in the attach menu, but Messaging used all-custom art instead.
Messaging was one of the first apps to have its own settings screen. Users could request read and delivery reports and set download preferences.

Enlarge / The slideshow creator. The right picture shows the menu options.

Ron Amadeo

The "slideshow" option in attachments would actually launch a fully featured slideshow creator. You could add pictures, choose the slide order, add music, change the duration of each slide, and add text. This was complicated enough to have its own app icon, but amazingly it was buried in the menu of the SMS app. This was one of the few Android apps that was completely unusable in portrait mode—the only way to see the picture and the controls was in landscape. Strangely, it would still rotate to portrait, but the layout just became a train wreck.

Enlarge / The Music player’s main navigation page, song list, album list, and “now playing" screen.

Ron Amadeo

Android 0.9 was the first to bring a music app to Android. The primary screen was mostly just four big, chunky navigation buttons that would take you to each music view. At the bottom of the app was a "now playing" bar that only contained the track name, artist, and a play/pause button. The song list had only a bare minimum interface, only showing the song name, artist, album and runtime. Album art was the only hope of seeing any color in this app. It was displayed as a tiny thumbnail in the album view and as a big, quarter-screen image in the Now Playing view.
Like most parts of Android in this era, the interface may not have been much to look at, but the features were there. The Now Playing screen had a button for a playlist queue that allowed you to drag songs around, shuffle, repeat, search, and choose background audio.

Enlarge / The “Pictures" all album view, individual album view, and a single picture view.

Ron Amadeo

The photo gallery was simply called "Pictures." The initial view showed all your albums. The two default ones were "Camera" and a large unified album called "All pictures." The thumbnail for each album was made up of a 2x2 grid of pictures, and every picture got a thick, white frame.
The individual album view was about what you would expect: a scrolling grid of pictures. You couldn't swipe through individual pictures—large left and right arrows flanking the individual picture had to be tapped on to move through an album. There was no pinch-zoom either; you had to zoom in and out with buttons.

Enlarge / Picture editing! These screenshots show an open menu, the “more" menu, cropping, and the settings.

Ron Amadeo

"Pictures" looked simple until you hit the menu button and suddenly accessed a myriad of options. Pictures could be cropped, rotated, deleted, or set as a wallpaper or contact icon. Like the browser, all of this was accomplished through a clumsy double-menu system. But again, why do two related menus look completely different?
Android 0.9 came out a mere two months before the first commercial release of Android. That was just enough time for app developers to make sure their apps worked—and for Google to do some testing and bug squashing before the big release.