File Under: Totally Unsurprising ⇥

Chris Ziegler for The Verge:

When Google was in the thick of Android’s development in 2006 and 2007 — long before the platform ever reached retail — it was a very different product, almost unrecognizable compared to the products we used today. Documents dated May of 2007 and made public during the course of Oracle’s lawsuit against Google over its use of Java in Android show off a number of those preliminary user interface elements, prominently marked “subject to change,” and you can see how this used to be a product focused on portrait QWERTY devices: every single screen shot is in a portrait orientation, and it’s clear to see how nearly everything could be operated with a directional pad alone.

No provisions for a touch screen either. What a surprise.