I was there at the start of the smartphone boom. I built a demo Android device that was capable of telephony/data, 3D rendering, etc. all before Google open-sourced the OS, for a SoC vendor that wasn't in Google's inner circle. Yet the industry was not interested in my junior profile during the subprime crisis.
[dead]
I wonder if the modern incarnation of Android flagships would have taken off at all if not for Apple. When Android first showed up, the dominant "smartphones" were running Symbian/Windows Mobile and they had a very different view of the world when it comes to UX and hardware.