Smartphone touchscreen device with a slide-out physical keyboard. The first Android device, the HTC Dream, was released in September 2008. Although Android's adoption was relatively slow at first, it started gaining widespread popularity in 2010, and in early 2012 dominated the smartphone market share worldwide, which continues to this day. Android and iPhone devices popularized the smartphone form factor based on a large capacitive touchscreen, and led to the decline of earlier, keyboard- and keypad-focused platforms. Microsoft, for instance, discontinued Windows Mobile and started a new touchscreen-oriented OS from scratch, called Windows Phone. Nokia abandoned Symbian and partnered with Microsoft to
2009 European Parliament election in Ireland 2009 European Parliament election in Ireland The 2009 European Parliament election in Ireland was the Irish component of the 2009 European Parliament election and was held on Friday, 5 June 2009, coinciding with the 2009 local elections. Two by-elections (Dublin South and Dublin Central) were also held on the same day. The governing Fianna Fáil party lost one MEP and a significant share of the vote, in line with the day's other election results. Fine Gael increased its national vote share but lost a seat. The Labour Party, which increased its delegation from one MEP to three, was the only