I own five Apple devices, and no Android devices :)
From the article,
QUOTE
The interesting thing here is that the release of the SDK with support for touch and large screens, as well as the release of this video and hardware reference design took place one month before the infamous photograph of the BlackBerry-esque device. This means that Google wasn't working with just one prototype, but several, which really shouldn't be a surprise at all, if you think about what Google wanted Android to be.
Android was never intended to run on just one form factor. Android runs on everything from candybar touch screen phones to qwerty-phones, and everything in between. Heck, there was a race to get Android running on laptops, and even before Android was well and ready for it, it was dumped on tablets.
UNQUOTE
Emphasis on blackberry and touchscreen appearing at the same time, and that Android was always intended to be form factor independent.
How does this equate to "in 2005, Android was blackberry"? Reference please.
Well, I certainly can't say that as a fact since only the Android team would know the truth. However, from the video in question it's pretty obvious that if a touch-screen version of Android was in development at the same time in 2005, the UI was not anything like the touch UI we have on Android or iPhone today. It was the same unintuitive, clunky and slow trash we had on resistive screens for ages.
That is where the "iPhone ripoff" claim comes in. Ripoff is too strong of a word, but it certainly had a huge influence on the direction of Android.
From the article, QUOTE The interesting thing here is that the release of the SDK with support for touch and large screens, as well as the release of this video and hardware reference design took place one month before the infamous photograph of the BlackBerry-esque device. This means that Google wasn't working with just one prototype, but several, which really shouldn't be a surprise at all, if you think about what Google wanted Android to be.
Android was never intended to run on just one form factor. Android runs on everything from candybar touch screen phones to qwerty-phones, and everything in between. Heck, there was a race to get Android running on laptops, and even before Android was well and ready for it, it was dumped on tablets. UNQUOTE Emphasis on blackberry and touchscreen appearing at the same time, and that Android was always intended to be form factor independent.
How does this equate to "in 2005, Android was blackberry"? Reference please.