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BRIEF: Google engineer reveals early draft of Android mascot
[January 04, 2013]

BRIEF: Google engineer reveals early draft of Android mascot


Jan 04, 2013 (Los Angeles Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A Google employee this week revealed some of the early versions of the Android mascot on his Google+ account, giving users a peek at what could have been.



Dan Morrill, an Android engineer, revealed that at one point in 2007 he and the Android team were getting ready to present Android to other Google employees. The Android team wanted other Google employees to start playing with the software and giving them feedback.

"I had no eye candy for the slides we were putting together," Morrill said. "Hence these guys." Morrill is referring to pictures at the bottom of his post of four robots in the colors of Google with swirly eyes and cone heads.


The engineer said he believes that his drawings were the first proposed Android mascots, and gained a little bit of popularity with the team, who dubbed the bots "Dandroids." Morrill's mascots stuck around for a bit until the "bugdroid" mascot that would become the official face of Android.

"Funny how the professional work is of vastly higher quality than the amateur, isn't it ;)" Morrill said, adding that he came across the mascots while doing some spring cleaning.

"I figured I'd share them so you can experience a thrill of terror at what might have been," he said.

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