This is what it looked like before the iPhone: http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Scre... So, yes, it was "just another OS" in the grand scheme of things. A blackberry and symbian competitor. A footnote. An explorer of new frontiers it was not.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/04/14/exclusive-android-...

" The change log of the planning document conveys the rapid change that occured in April, when suddenly there was a "major update." Among the changes were section 3.11.2 Touchscreen, which now read, "a touch screen for finger-based navigation—including multitouch capabilities—is required. Stylus-based navigation is not supported."

The iPhone had the android team sweat bullets. They were working all this time on a Blackberry clone, and had to re-purpose their UI to become 100% multitouch friendly before releasing it.

Android might have been released earlier than it did if the iPhone hadn't been a thing. It had to be remade to not become a laughing stock. It still was a laughing stock at release though.

" When it was released, Android still lacked support for touchscreen typing by finger. And while the phone shipped with hardware support for multitouch, its software was patched to remove support for the feature. In late 2009, Google released Android 2.0, adding software support for multitouch. "

Yeah, but Andy Rubin and Android were a separate company that Google bought. They sort of acquired someone else's moonshot.