Chet Haase - The Team That Built the Android Operating System

The team that built the Android operating system

Also by Chet Haase

Round & Holy
An Homage to Donuts

When I am King...

When I am King... II

Filthy Rich Clients
Developing Animated and Graphical Effects
for Desktop Java Applications

(with Romain Guy)

Flex 4 Fun

The team that built the Android operating system

Chet Haase

C opyright 2021 by Chet Haase
All Rights Reserved

First Edition

Cover art and illustrations by Dan Sandler

Cover and book design by Gretchen Achilles

ISBN 978-1-7373548-2-6 (color)

ISBN 978-1-7373548-1-9 (b&w)

ISBN 978-1-7373548-4-0 (eBook)

Website: www.chethaase.com/androids

Twitter: twitter.com/chethaase (@chethaase)

All profits from this book will be donated to charity

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To Kris:
First reader, last reviewer,
toughest critic, best friend

Any time anything works out, if you dont acknowledge the huge luck factor, youre kind of a jerk.

ficus kirkpatrick

(Listed in order of appearance on the Android team)

Note: This list is not complete; it is mostly limited to the people I interacted with directly about this book. There were many other people on the Android team at that time who contributed substantially to the product.

Cast Member: Role

Andy Rubin: Founder, robot maker

Chris White: Founder, designer, engineer, electric skateboarder

Tracey Cole: Administrative business partner, manager of managers

Brian Swetland: Engineer, kernel hacker, systems team lead

Rich Miner: Founder, mobile entrepreneur

Nick Sears: Founder, carrier deal-maker

Andy McFadden: Engineer, demo/calendar/simulator/ runtime developer

Ficus Kirkpatrick: Engineer, kernel driver driver, Crazy ringtoner

Wei Huang: Engineer, browser, communicator

Dan Bornstein: Engineer, Dalvik creator

Mathias Agopian: Engineer, graphics flinger

Joe Onorato: Engineer, build, UI, framework, and more

Eric Fischer: Engineer, Mr. TextView

Mike Fleming: Engineer, telephony and runtimes

Jeff Yaksick: Designer, toys and UIs

Cary Clark: Engineer, browser graphics

Mike Reed: Skia lead, serial graphics entrepreneur

Dianne Hackborn: Engineer, framework. Most of it.

Jeff Hamilton: Engineer, Binder, database, and contacts

Steve Horowitz: Engineering manager, compromiser

Mike Cleron: Engineer, UI toolkit rewriter and framework manager

Grace Kloba: Engineer, Android browser

Arve Hjnnevg: Engineer, drivers and debugging: few words, much code

Hiroshi Lockheimer: TPM, manager of partners

Jason Parks: Engineer, jparks broke it

Iliyan Malchev: Engineer, Bluetooth, camera, and other drivers

Cdric Beust: Engineer, Gmailer

David Turner: Engineer, Android emulator and more

Debajit Ghosh: Engineer, in service of Calendar

Marco Nelissen: Engineer, sound code

Ryan PC Gibson: TPM, release namer and shipper

Evan Millar: Engineer, testing, testing

Xavier Ducrohet: Engineer, tool tech, totally

Michael Morrissey: Engineering lead, servicing server services

Bob Lee: Engineer, core libraries

Romain Guy: Engineer, UI toolkit intern extraordinaire

Tom Moss: Lawyer, business development, deal maker

Brian Jones: Receptionist, admin, device hook-up guy

Dan Egnor: Engineer, over-the-air updater

Dave Sparks: Engineer, media manager

Peisun Wu: TPM, media, messaging, and donut burgers

Ed Heyl: Engineer, build. test. release. repeat.

Dirk Dougherty: Tech writer, RTFM

Charles Mendis: Engineer, location navigator

Dave Burke: Engineering lead, London mobile team

Andrei Popescu: Engineering lead, London browser team

Nicolas Roard: Engineer, gearing up for Android browser

San Mehat: Engineer, kernel drivers and SD card debugging

Nick Pelly: Engineer, Bluetooth wrangler

Rebecca Zavin: Engineer, device bringup, Droid driver

Chiu-Ki Chan: Engineer, checking in

Mike Chan: Engineer, kernel security

Bruce Gay: Engineer, monkey keeper

Jeff Sharkey: Engineer, contest winner

Jesse Wilson: Engineer, terrible API mitigator

Dan Sandler: Engineer, System UI, illustrator, Easter egger

Introduction

I n mid-May of 2010, I walked into building 44 on the Google campus for my first day on the Android team. Not far from my desk were at least a half-dozen machines for brewing a wide variety of great, strong coffee. I was surprised at the focus on caffeine, but not for long.

The team was finishing up one release in parallel. Both were difficult, time-consuming, and critical as we tried to make Android relevant in the crowded smartphone market at that time. There was a constant feeling of racing furiously toward a goal, doing whatever we could to reach it and not knowing if we would. The pace was frantic, but the work was exhilaratingand not just because of the caffeine. The excitement came from being on a team singularly dedicated to its purpose, no matter how much effort it took.

Working on Android was a stark difference from where my career began.

I started my work life with a nine-to-five job at a conservative old firm in Minnesota. The company relied on people sticking around for their entire careers and beyond, offering retirees a free turkey every Thanksgiving. I was all set; I just needed to clock in my forty hours a week and rise slowly through the ranks until I was ready for my retirement and my turkey.

Within a year, I was bored out of my mind, and within two Id left for graduate school, to reboot my skills into something I actually enjoyed: computer Sun Microsystems, where I thrived for the next couple of years until another interesting job beckoned.

I spent the next several years moving from company to company as other jobs, technologies, and people offered a continually shifting variety in my tech life. I worked at Sun (a few different times), Anyware Fast (a contracting company started by a couple of friends), DimensionX (an early web startup acquired by Microsoft), Intel, Rendition (a 3D chip startup acquired by Micron), and Adobe.

My father, who retired from the U.S. Navy after 21 years, was never comfortable with my frequent job changes. What about a pension? What about job security? What about stability for my family?

What he didnt see was that this was the way things were, and are, in Silicon Valley, and increasingly in high tech everywhere. For every job I started, I built a new set of skills that contributed to future prospects and products. That same attitude, and reality, applies to all of the engineers shifting between tech firms; were building skills that well continue to draw from as we move around creating all kinds of products. Its exactly these diverse backgrounds that contribute much-needed skills to new projects, to tackle unknown problems and deliver innovative solutions.

In 2010, another opportunity presented itself. UI toolkit team in Building 44 on the Google campus in Mountain View and started working harder than I ever had before.