---
title: "Which came first, Android or JavaScript?"
description: "Android vs JavaScript: JavaScript came first, by 13 years — 1995 against 2008. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/android-vs-javascript/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Android or JavaScript?

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

1995 — 13 years before Android

JavaScript came first, by 13 years. Brendan Eich wrote it in ten days for Netscape Navigator.

## Side by side

|  | Android | JavaScript |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2008 | 1995 |
| Date | 2008-09-23 | — |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | The HTC Dream, the first Android phone, was announced. | Brendan Eich wrote it in ten days for Netscape Navigator. |

## 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.

## JavaScript

JavaScript was written in about ten days in May 1995, shipped in Netscape Navigator 2.0 later that year, and was called LiveScript until December, when Netscape renamed it as part of a marketing deal with Sun. It has nothing to do with Java beyond some borrowed syntax. Standardisation as ECMAScript followed in 1997, and the language spent a decade being treated as a toy before it became the most widely deployed programming language in the world.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Android or JavaScript?

JavaScript, by 13 years — 1995 against 2008.

### When did Android start?

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

### When did JavaScript start?

1995. Brendan Eich wrote it in ten days for Netscape Navigator.

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## Sources

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