---
title: "Which came first, Android or Twitter?"
description: "Android vs Twitter: Twitter came first, by 2 years — 2006 against 2008. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/android-vs-twitter/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Android or Twitter?

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

2006 — 2 years before Android

Twitter came first, by 2 years. Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet.

## Side by side

|  | Android | Twitter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2008 | 2006 |
| Date | 2008-09-23 | 2006-03-21 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | The HTC Dream, the first Android phone, was announced. | Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet. |

## 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.

## Twitter

The first tweet — "just setting up my twttr" — went out on 21 March 2006, and the service opened publicly that July. The 140-character limit came from SMS: a text message allows 160 characters and 20 were reserved for the username. When the limit doubled to 280 in 2017 the SMS constraint had been irrelevant for years.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Android or Twitter?

Twitter, by 2 years — 2006 against 2008.

### When did Android start?

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

### When did Twitter start?

2006. Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet.

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## Sources

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