---
title: "Which came first, Android or email?"
description: "Android vs email: email came first, by 37 years — 1971 against 2008. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/android-vs-email/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Android or email?

**Which came first, Android or email?: email**

1971 — 37 years before Android

email came first, by 37 years. Ray Tomlinson sent the first message between two computers and chose the @ sign.

## Side by side

|  | Android | email |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2008 | 1971 |
| Date | 2008-09-23 | — |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | The HTC Dream, the first Android phone, was announced. | Ray Tomlinson sent the first message between two computers and chose the @ sign. |

## Android

Android as a company was founded in October 2003 — four years before the iPhone — originally to build an operating system for digital cameras. Google bought it in 2005 and the first Android phone shipped in October 2008, fifteen months after the iPhone went on sale. So Android is older than the iPhone as a project and younger as a product, which is why the question needs the distinction stated.

## email

Messages had been left for other users of the same machine since the mid-1960s. What Tomlinson did in 1971 was send one between two different computers on ARPANET, and pick @ to separate the user from the host because it was the only preposition on the keyboard that could not appear in a name. He did not record the first message and later said it was probably "QWERTYUIOP" or similar. Email is eighteen years older than the Web.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Android or email?

email, by 37 years — 1971 against 2008.

### When did Android start?

2008. The HTC Dream, the first Android phone, was announced.

### When did email start?

1971. Ray Tomlinson sent the first message between two computers and chose the @ sign.

## Related pages

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- [email or Java?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-java/)
- [email or JavaScript?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-javascript/)
- [email or Netflix?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-netflix/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]