What is Android ?

Posted by The Modern Buddha , Monday, February 28 22:05

Android, android, android..... We here it everywhere these days. They have even got jobs for people specialised in this technology - well one important reason why you should know about it.
About 7 years ago it was the name of a character in one of the cartoon shows that i and my brother used to like and watch avidly and which my mom despised. Nowadays, however, it refers to an OS widely used in the new generation cell-phones.
One of the most used gadget or device these days is a Mobile phone. Almost everybody has it and it has become an integral part of our everyday life. Earlier it was only used for communication. Little while later, small applications like calendars, calculators etc were added to provide additional functionality or rather make life easier. Nowadays we want almost everything to be done by our handset. We are tired of carrying the bulky laptops and netbooks for our everyday activities. Be it Web browsing, File sharing, Uploading, Downloading, Social networking etc - just name it and the Gen-'Y' mobiles have about everything we can dream of. So, how is it possible, with such a small device such as our handset that such rich user apps are supported. The answer is the old one - OS. 

Disclaimer - There's gonna be more jargon further!!

One of the most widely used OS for smart-phones nowadays is "Android". So more about Android now  :


Android is a software bunch comprising not only operating system but also middleware and key applications.Android Inc was founded in Palo Alto, California, U.S.A by Andy Rubin, Rich miner, Nick sears and Chris White in 2003. Later Android Inc. was acquired by Google in 2005. After original release there have been number of updates in the original version of Android as below :



 Hardwares that support Android are mainly based on ARM architecture platform. Some of the current features and specifications of android are:



Android comes with an Android market which is an online software store. It was developed by Google. It allows Android users to select, and download applications developed by third party developers and use them. There are around 2.0 lakh + games, application and widgets available on the market for users and it is rapidly growing.
Android applications are written in java programming language. Android is available as open source for developers to develop applications which can be further used for selling in android market. There are around 200000 applications developed for android with over 3 billion+ downloads. Android relies on Linux version 2.6 for core system services such as security, memory management, process management, network stack, and driver model. For software development, Android provides Android SDK (Software development kit).

Apple's iOS and Windows Phone give strong competition to Android. Also there is the Symbian OS. But, Still, Android emergeds as the current ruler of the mobile OS world. The most recent version of Android is HoneyComb 3.1 with some very exciting features.
With this I am signing out....more on it next time and on some requests.

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