After getting exhausted with the basic mobiles which I exclusively used it for oral communication and atmost i guess its a media player and FM to get some euphony... we generally hound for a new, smart and an handsome mobile...
Chances are there that what you actually wanted was an Iphone and discovered that its well over the budget and start looking for an alternate.... you have Blackberries, but something between business connotations and a steam-roller mobiles, u never quite fancied it.. sooner or later you will definitely end up with something called Android spearheaded with a friendly looking green robot....
Whenever someone speaks about a mobile phone.... One can always heed the Term "Android"... Used to wonder "What the Hell this Android is??" and what it has to do with the mobile and its applications??
Android:
Its a Linux Kernel based multi-tasking Operating Systerm for Mobile devices.
Android Brief History:
- October 2003: Android Inc., was founded at California (USA), by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White.
- August 2005: Now Android Inc., is a subsidiary of Google, as Google acquired it for $50 million on Aug 17, 2005.
- 5 November 2007: Formed OPEN HANDSET ALLIANCE (OHA) led by google. OHA is a consortium of 84 companies (hardware, software and telecommunication companies) to develop open standards for mobile devices. On the same day Android Beta (build on Linux kernel ver 2.6) was released by OHA.
- 12 November 2007: Released Android Beta Software Development Kit (SDK).
- 23 September 2008: Unveiled first Ever Android Device: T-Mobile HTC Dream (G1) featuring Android 1.0
Android Versions:
The Android versions released are
- Android beta (released on 5th Nov 2007)
- Android 1.0
Astro - Android 1.1
Bender - Android 1.5 Cupcake
- Android 1.6 Donut
- Android 2.0/2.1 Eclair
- Android 2.2.x Froyo (Frozen Yogurt)
- Android 2.3.x Gingerbread
- Android 3.x Honeycomb
- Android 4.0.x Ice Cream Sandwich
- Android 4.1.x Jelly Bean
These updates are named after Pastries, a dessert/ sweet treat...
These versions were named in Alphabetical order..
These versions were named in Alphabetical order..
FACTS of Android:
- Google released the Android code as Open-source code under the APACHE LICENSE.
- The Android OS consists of 12 million lines of code including 2.8 million lines of C, 3 million lines of XML, 2.1 million lines of Java and 1.75 million lines of C++.
- The further development and maintenance of Android is carried out by ANDROID OPEN SOURCE PROJECT (AOSP)
- First Publicly available application was SNAKE Game.
- Google gives Android Free of COST to the mobile manufacturers.
- The Android LOGO resembles the robot in the Atari Game called "Gauntlet: The Third Encounter"
- Android is developed from Linux. But it’s not “Linux”
Android is not Linux. Google has its own version of Linux to power its systems. A feature added by introduced by Google in Linux is “wake locks“, which is a mechanism in Linux code to handle power management. The Wake locks allow Android applications to request kernel not to go into low-power state.
- Android uses Java as a development platform. But it’s not “JavaME”
Android is not Java ME. The SDK provided by Android is based on Java and most of Java SE is supported in this SDK, except AWT or Swing. Limited JSRs (Java Specification Request), however, are implemented in addition to the core Java framework. Android’s support for Open GL, for example, is built similar to JSR 239.
- Android runs a VM named Dalvik. But it’s not a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Dalvik is not a JVM. It was a VM built from scratch by Google for Android phone; and optimized for Android. Instead of running Java byte code, Dalvik runs .dex files. Further, unlike JVMs which are stack-based, Dalvik is a registers-based VM.
- Android’s run time includes a SQLite database!
Android can make use of the RDBMS "SQLite". SQLite, which is a light weight relational database which is built into Android for data storage purpose..
Android Applications:
- Android has a large community of developers (its an open source project) who develops applications to improve the functionality of the devices.
- The Android applications can be downloaded from Google play (formerly was Android Market) and the other third party sites....
- Android applications are packaged in .apk format.
- Android applications are stored under /data/app folder on the Android OS (the folder is accessible only to the root user for security reasons)
- .APK package contains .dex files (compiled byte code files called Dalvik executables), resource, assets, certificates and manifest files etc.
Tools required to write an Android Application:
Hmm, Good thing about Google is that its an open source and is inexpensive to write a code for Android Applications. It simply requires a MAC or a PC with an Windows or Linux pre-installed with a JDK.
- Get the Android SDK for free which provides you the API libraries and developer tools necessary to build, test and debug apps for Android.
- Get Eclipse IDE (recommended) or a NetBeans IDE which provides essential tools for the developer.
- Install Android Plugin called the Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin. This tools add android project support and it should be developed and installed by all Android Developers.
- Configure Eclipse to point to the Android SDK.
All these you get for free...
ANDROID ROCKZZZ.... :)
