The first Android smartphone was released in 2008. That phone was the HTC Dream, sold in the United States as the T-Mobile G1, and it launched on October 20, 2008.
The HTC Dream was developed by HTC with Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It combined a 3.2-inch touchscreen with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a trackball, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Android 1.0. At the time, Android was positioned as a more open alternative to platforms such as Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, and iPhone OS.
Android itself had been publicly announced in November 2007, but that announcement was not the same as a consumer smartphone release. The HTC Dream was the first commercially available phone to run the operating system. It originally included Google services such as Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and the Android Market.
A common mix-up is confusing Android’s 2007 unveiling with the first Android phone’s 2008 release. The software was introduced first; the hardware arrived the following year.