Comment by thu2111

Android could and did handle all kinds of handsets. It wasn't Android that took the industry in the iPhone form factor, it was the OEMs. People tend to think Android had way more power over the mobile industry than it actually did back then. Android got all kinds of dumb stuff put in it because a major carrier or OEM i.e. customer wanted it there.

That also constrained Android's innovation significantly. Some people say Android copied iOS, which is only partly true, and of course iOS has also copied Android over time. But when I was at Google I did encounter quite a few stories of cases where the Android team came up with something really clever and it was shot down by carriers and OEMs who said "we want what the iPhone does". They had no vision at all.

In fairness to carriers though, T-Mobile's QA effort on the G1/G2 were pretty intense. At the time Android's QA was near non-existent and the carrier testing procedure found tons of bugs.