[drewvolpe]

The original version of Android looked like and worked like a Blackberry: small screen with a physical keyboard and a D pad for navigation (no touch control).

When the iPhone was announced in 2007, they realized that on-screen keyboards and multi-touch control were the future, so they did a complete redesign, moving to an interface similar to the iPhone. Here's a quote from one of their engineers talking about the iPhone announcement:

“As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted [an iPhone] immediately. But as a Google engineer I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over’” Chris DeSalvo said. “What we had suddenly looked so… nineties. It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.”

http://bgr.com/2013/12/19/original-iphone-android-story/

[blinkingled]

Nothing to do with OP's point of Android being based on Linux even before the iPhone.

[Every time this story is told, I like to remind - note how fast Google were able to pivot / adapt when Microsoft with their crazy resources and Engineering might took way longer. (Even beyond that MS had to change the way apps were developed for WP.) Fact is Google/Danger/Android were in a fundamentally good position mobile OS design wise way before the iPhone. After the iPhone - they looked at the possibilities of multi touch soft keyboard UI and were able to get there and surpass fairly fast.]

[addicted]

To be fair Google knew about the iPhone well before Microsoft did (they worked closely with Apple in the beginning for Maps and search).

But even adjusting for that it took MS 3-4 years after the iPhone to just get Windows Phone 7 out, and that was also clearly a rushed release, because they had to throw everything out for Windows Phone 8.