It wasn't very surreptitiously, Google very loudly bought Android Inc. for 50 million in 2005, two years before Apple ripped of the phone that won the iF Design Award in 2006, the LG Prada.
reply> Apple ripped of the phone that won the iF Design Award in 2006, the LG Prada.
replyNice, albeit implausible story. Apple had been working on multi touch screens for a long time before that. They applied for a patent on it from 2004[1]. And TBF, neither Apple nor LG invented capacitive touch screens. Multiple discovery is a thing.
Android’s original offering was nothing like modern phones. They didn’t have multi touch and they expected physical keyboards. Android added multi-touch in 2.0 Eclair in 2009 as a clear response to iPhone’s popularity
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