March 13, 2013 - 21:33 AMT
Andy Rubin to step down as Google’s Android head - report

Andy Rubin will no longer be leading the charge for Android at Google, the company announced.

According to VentureBeat, Chrome head Sundar Pichai will step up to replace Rubin, while also maintaining his regular duties. It sounds like Rubin will remain at Google, but he’ll be working on other projects outside of Android.

“Most people thought he was nuts,” Google chief executive Larry Page wrote in a blog post, regarding Rubin’s early dream of an open-source mobile operating system. “But his insight immediately struck a chord because at the time it was extremely painful developing services for mobile devices. We had a closet full of more than 100 phones and were building our software pretty much device by device. It was nearly impossible for us to make truly great mobile experiences.”