Those familiar with the history of Android will know that the world’s now most dominant mobile OS platform was not always a Google owned product. Years before Google got their hands on it, Android was the work of former Google executive and Android Co-Founder Andy Rubin, who along with his Co-Founders Rich Miner and Chris White later sold the rights to the operating system to Google and joined on at the company. Andy Rubin left Google last year at the end of October after a nine-year employment to pursue other endeavors, which included starting up his own company called Playground Global, a technology incubator. After having nothing to do with Android for some time, Rubin reportedly wants to be involved in the Android industry once again.
This time, instead of Rubin being a part of Google, he would potentially use his company and expertise to start an Android phone company to manufacture devices. Considering the amount of funding raised through Playground and the more recent rise in Android device startups like OnePlus and Nextbit, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine something coming from Rubin and Playground, especially considering the amount of time Rubin spent working with the Android platform over the years.
What’s unclear is how Rubin and Playground would plan to attack the already saturated Android device market. Being unique is not necessarily a difficult task, but compared to just a few years ago it’s certainly not as easy. Because of this, though, it would afford Rubin and his potential device company the opportunity to think of ways to innovate and offer up a device that would be compelling and follow the trends of the industry. Nextbit for example has taken advantage of the ever growing focus on the cloud to produce a phone that technically offers up huge limits of storage, as it pairs together internal hard drive space with cloud storage space to offer up a phone that has less limits than other devices. Since Playground’s inception, Rubin has funded a number of startups and projects, and it’s possible that he would be looking to somehow make the potential Android device work together with other products he may be developing.