9/25/23, 11:15 AM Android - Overview

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What is Android?

Android is an open source and Linux-based Operating System for mobile

devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Android was developed by
the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google, and other companies.

Android offers a unified approach to application development for mobile devices

which means developers need only develop for Android, and their applications
should be able to run on different devices powered by Android.

The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was
released by Google in 2007 where as the first commercial version, Android 1.0,
was released in September 2008.

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On June 27, 2012, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced the next
Android version, 4.1 Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean is an incremental update, with the
primary aim of improving the user interface, both in terms of functionality and
performance.

The source code for Android is available under free and open source software
licenses. Google publishes most of the code under the Apache License version
2.0 and the rest, Linux kernel changes, under the GNU General Public License
version 2.

Why Android ?

Features of Android
Android is a powerful operating system competing with Apple 4GS and supports
great features. Few of them are listed below −

Sr.No. Feature & Description

Beautiful UI
1 Android OS basic screen provides a beautiful and intuitive user
interface.

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Connectivity
2 GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC
and WiMAX.

Storage
3 SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage
purposes.

Media support
4 H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB, AAC, HE-AAC, AAC 5.1,
MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.

Messaging
5
SMS and MMS

Web browser
6 Based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with
Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine supporting HTML5 and CSS3.

Multi-touch
7 Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made
available in handsets such as the HTC Hero.

Multi-tasking
8 User can jump from one task to another and same time various
application can run simultaneously.

Resizable widgets
9 Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more
content or shrink them to save space.

Multi-Language
10
Supports single direction and bi-directional text.

GCM
Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a service that lets developers send
11
short message data to their users on Android devices, without
needing a proprietary sync solution.

Wi-Fi Direct
12 A technology that lets apps discover and pair directly, over a high-
bandwidth peer-to-peer connection.

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Android Beam
13 A popular NFC-based technology that lets users instantly share, just
by touching two NFC-enabled phones together.

Android Applications
Android applications are usually developed in the Java language using the
Android Software Development Kit.

Once developed, Android applications can be packaged easily and sold out
either through a store such as Google Play, SlideME, Opera Mobile Store,
Mobango, F-droid and the Amazon Appstore.

Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices in more than 190

countries around the world. It's the largest installed base of any mobile
platform and growing fast. Every day more than 1 million new Android devices
are activated worldwide.

This tutorial has been written with an aim to teach you how to develop and
package Android application. We will start from environment setup for Android
application programming and then drill down to look into various aspects of
Android applications.

Categories of Android applications

There are many android applications in the market. The top categories are −

History of Android

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The code names of android ranges from A to N currently, such as Aestro,

Blender, Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream
Sandwitch, Jelly Bean, KitKat, Lollipop and Marshmallow. Let's understand the
android history in a sequence.

What is API level?

API Level is an integer value that uniquely identifies the framework API
revision offered by a version of the Android platform.

Platform API
VERSION_CODE
Version Level

Android 6.0 23 MARSHMALLOW

Android 5.1 22 LOLLIPOP_MR1

Android 5.0 21 LOLLIPOP

KitKat for
Android 4.4W 20 KITKAT_WATCH
Wearables Only

Android 4.4 19 KITKAT

Android 4.3 18 JELLY_BEAN_MR2

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Android 4.2,
17 JELLY_BEAN_MR1
4.2.2

Android 4.1,
16 JELLY_BEAN
4.1.1

Android 4.0.3,
15 ICE_CREAM_SANDWICH_MR1
4.0.4

Android 4.0,
14 ICE_CREAM_SANDWICH
4.0.1, 4.0.2

Android 3.2 13 HONEYCOMB_MR2

Android 3.1.x 12 HONEYCOMB_MR1

Android 3.0.x 11 HONEYCOMB

Android 2.3.4
10 GINGERBREAD_MR1
Android 2.3.3

Android 2.3.2
Android 2.3.1 9 GINGERBREAD
Android 2.3

Android 2.2.x 8 FROYO

Android 2.1.x 7 ECLAIR_MR1

Android 2.0.1 6 ECLAIR_0_1

Android 2.0 5 ECLAIR

Android 1.6 4 DONUT

Android 1.5 3 CUPCAKE

Android 1.1 2 BASE_1_1

Android 1.0 1 BASE

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