Time to celebrate: Google Android is now 10 years old

Last year, we celebrated 10 years since the release of the first beta release of the Android mobile operating system. Now, the time has come for the anniversary of an entire decade since the introduction of the first commercially available Android handset, namely the T-Mobile G1 (also known as the HTC Dream).

The aforementioned smartphone had a full keyboard, a trackball, a slide-up screen, and ran Android 1.6 Donut. The next iconic device in Android's history arrived two years later — in January 2010 — when the original Google Phone made its debut. This handset, also known as the Nexus One, was also made by HTC and ran Android 2.1 Eclair out of the box. However, the latest official update it received pushed it up to Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread.

Other iconic Android smartphones backed by Google are the Nexus S (December 2010, the first to support NFC in both hardware and software out of the box), Nexus 6 (October 2014, first smartphone with Turbo Power Charging), the Google Pixel (October 2015, best mobile camera performance), and the story continues. Obviously, there is much more in the Android world when it comes to Samsung, Motorola, Sony, or LG, but you are free to add your own best-Android-phone-ever memories in the comments section.

At last, we should mention five key Android features that have been with us since Android 1.0: Google Play Store (initially Android Market), synchronization (Google Contacts, Gmail, and Google Calendar have always been around), app organization (it obviously evolved, but the paradigms used remain the same), SMS and MMS, as well as notifications.

Happy 10th anniversary, Google Android-driven phones!