What is Android and their Version and Feature of Android ?

WHAT IS ANDROID?

Android is a mobile operating system that is based on a modified version of Linux. It was originally 

developed by a startup of the same name, Android, Inc. In 2005, as part of its strategy to enter the 

mobile space, Google purchased Android and took over its development work (as well as its develop-ment team). 

Google wanted Android to be open and free; hence, most of the Android code was released under 

the open-source Apache License, which means that anyone who wants to use Android can do so by 

downloading the full Android source code. Moreover, vendors (typically hardware manufacturers) 

can add their own proprietary extensions to Android and customize Android to differentiate their 

products from others. This simple development model makes Android very attractive and has thus 

piqued the interest of many vendors. This has been especially true for companies affected by the phe-nomenon of Apple’s iPhone, a hugely successful product that revolutionized the smartphone industry. Such companies include Motorola and Sony Ericsson, which for many years have been developing 

their own mobile operating systems. When the iPhone was launched, many of these manufacturers 

had to scramble to find new ways of revitalizing their products. These manufacturers see Android as 

a solution — they will continue to design their own hardware and use Android as the operating sys-tem that powers it. 

The main advantage of adopting Android is that it offers a unified approach to application development.Developers need only develop for Android, and their applications should be able to run on numerous different devices, as long as the devices are powered using Android. In the world of smartphones, appli-cations are the most important part of the success chain. Device manufacturers therefore see Android as their best hope to challenge the onslaught of the iPhone, which already commands a large base of applications.

Android Versions

Android has gone through quite a number of updates since its first release.See the below image

Features of Android

As Android is open source and freely available to manufacturers for customization, there are no fixed

hardware and software configurations. However, Android itself supports the following features:

➤➤ Storage — Uses SQLite, a lightweight relational database, for data storage. i will discusses

data storage in more detail later.

➤➤ Connectivity — Supports GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth (includes

A2DP and AVRCP), WiFi, LTE, and WiMAX. i will discusses networking in more detail later.

➤➤ Messaging — Supports both SMS and MMS. i will discusses messaging in more detail later.

➤➤ Web browser — Based on the open-source WebKit, together with Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine

➤➤ Media support — Includes support for the following media: H.263, H.264 (in 3GP or MP4

container), MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB (in 3GP container), AAC, HE-AAC (in MP4 or

3GP container), MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP

➤➤ Hardware support —  Accelerometer Sensor, Camera, Digital Compass, Proximity Sensor, and GPS

➤➤ Multi-touch — Supports multi-touch screens

➤➤ Multi -tasking — Supports multi-tasking applications

➤➤ Flash support — Android 2.3 supports Flash 10.1.

➤➤ Tethering — Supports sharing of Internet connections as a wired/wireless hotspot.

Android Architecture

Hello friends

                We have already see the introduction to android (read first if not). Today we see the architecture of android. Architecture of android means a things that together become a platform to run android application easily in a small touch screen device.

There are main five part in android Architecture

1        1)      Linux kernel (Figure mark as 1)

2        2)      Libraries (Figure mark as 2)

3        3)      Android Runtime (Figure mark as 3)

4        4)      Application Framework (Figure mark as 4)

5        5)      Application (Figure mark as 5)

The above five part combine and form a Android Architecture. Lets see each in detail

1 1)    Linux kernel : In Android Architecture the bottom of the layer is Linux(See figure mark as 1).This layer provides a basic system functionality like process management, device management like Camera, Keypad, Display, Bluetooth, etc. Also, the kernel handles all the things that Linux is really good at such as networking and a vast array of device drivers, which take the pain out of interfacing to peripherals hardware.

2 2)     Libraries :  In Android Architecture on the top of Linux kernel there is a set of libraries including open-source Web browser engine webkit, well known libc, media framework, SGL, Free Type, SQLite database which is a useful repository for storage and sharing of application data, libraries to play and record audio and video, SSL libraries responsible for internet security etc.

3 3)      Android Runtime: In Android Architecture this is a third section that is available on the second layer from the bottom. This section provide a key component called Dalvik Virtual Machine (Detail we discuss in later post) just like a java virtual machine (JVM) but it is specially designed and optimized for Android.

The Dalvik Virtual Machine (DVM) makes use of Linux core features like memory management and multi-threading, which is intrinsic in the java language. The Dalvik VM enables every Android Application to run in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik Virtual machine.

4 4)      Application Framework : The Application Framework layer provides many higher-level services to application in the form of java classes. Application developers are allowed to make use of these service in their applications.

5 5)      Application : You will find all the Android application at the top layer. You will write your application to be installed on the layer only. Example of such application are Contacts, Books, Browser, Games, or any other application you installed in your device.