Android-The Complete Story of Android...........
World is contracting with the growth of mobile phone technology. As the number of users is increasing day by day, facilities are also increasing. Starting with simple regular handsets which were used just for making phone calls, mobiles have changed our lives and have become part of it. Now they are not used just for making calls but they have innumerable uses and can be used as a Camera , Music player, Tablet PC, T.V. , Web browser etc . And with the new technologies, new software and operating systems are required.
Introduction
Operating Systems have developed a lot in last 15 years. Starting
from black and white phones to recent smart phones or mini computers,
mobile OS has come far away. Especially for smart phones, Mobile OS has
greatly evolved from Palm OS in 1996 to Windows pocket PC in 2000 then
to Blackberry OS and Android.
One of the most widely used mobile OS these days is ANDROID. Android is
a software bunch comprising not only operating system but also
middleware and key applications. Android Inc was founded in Palo Alto of
California, U.S. 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.
Features & Specifications
Android is a powerful Operating System supporting a large number of
applications in Smart Phones. These applications make life more
comfortable and advanced for the users. 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 lack+ games, application and widgets
available on the market for users.
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).
Applications
These are the basics of Android applications.
• Android applications are composed of one or more application
components (activities, services, content providers, and broadcast
receivers)
• Each component performs a different role in the overall
application behavior, and each one can be activated individually (even
by other applications)
• The manifest file must declare all components in the
application and should also declare all application requirements, such
as the minimum version of Android required and any hardware
configurations required
• Non-code application resources (images, strings, layout
files, etc.) should include alternatives for different device
configurations (such as different strings for different languages)
Google, for software development and application development, had
launched two competitions ADC1 and ADC2 for the most innovative
applications for Android. It offered prizes of USD 10 million combined
in ADC1 and 2. ADC1 was launched in January 2008 and ADC 2 was launched
in May 2009. These competitions helped Google a lot in making Android
better, more user friendly, advanced and interactive.
Other Mobile OSs
There are different other Mobile operating systems also present in
market in competition with Android. Apple’s iOS and Windows Phone give
strong competition to Android. A simple comparison between features and
specifications of latest version of Android and other Operating Systems
can be seen in the table given below.
According to Canalys, In Q2 2009 Android had 2.8% market share which had
grown to 33% market share by Q4 2010 which made Android leader of smart
phone OSs worldwide. The market share for commonly used mobile OSs is
shown in the following pie chart.
A large no of mobile companies are using Android. A list of companies supporting Android in their hardware is
- Acer Inc
- ALCATEL ( TCL corporation )
- Bluelans Communications
- NCE casio Mobile Communications
- Cherry Mobile
- CSL
- Dell
- Garmin
- Geeks Phone
- General Mobile
- High screen
- HKC
- HTC coroporation
- Huawei
- I-mobile
- Karbonn
- Lenovo
- LG
- Motorola
- Nokia
- Samsung
- Sony Ericsson
- Videocon
- ZTE
Android’s Latest
Android is still updating. The recent version of Android (Honey
comb 3.1) has very advanced features and updated applications which are
optimized for use on larger screen devices. These applications are
mentioned below:
Browser: Android’s new version includes a number
of new features for simple, fast and convenient browsing with the Quick
UI controls. It also supports popular web standards like CSS 3D,
Animations and CSS fixed positioning to all sites, mobile or desktop. It
also supports playback of HTML5 video content. To make it better and
convenient to manage favorite content, users can now save a web page
locally for offline viewing, including all styling and images.
A clip of new browser
Gallery: Now the new gallery supports PTP (Picture
Transfer Protocol) so that users can directly connect their cameras
with Android device and transfer pictures with a single touch.
Calendar: Calendar grids are larger, for better
readability and more accurate touch-targeting. Additionally, users can
create a larger viewing area for grids by hiding the calendar list
controls. Controls in the date picker are redesigned, making them easier
to see and use.
Contacts: The Contacts app now lets you locate
contacts more easily using full text search. Search returns matching
results from all fields that are stored for a contact.
Email: When replying or forwarding an HTML
message, The Email app now sends both plain text and HTML bodies as a
multi-part mime message. This ensures that the message will be formatted
properly for all recipients. Folder prefixes for IMAP accounts are now
easier to define and manage. To conserve battery power and minimize cell
data usage, the application now prefetches email from the server only
when the device is connected to a Wi-Fi access point.
An updated Home screen widget give users quick access to more
email. Users can touch Email icon at the top of the widget to cycle
through labels such as Inbox, Unread, and Starred. The widget itself is
now resizable, both horizontally and vertically.
Enterprise support: Users can now configure an
HTTP proxy for each connected Wi-Fi access point. This lets
administrators work with users to set a proxy hostname, port, and any
bypass sub domains. This proxy configuration is automatically used by
the Browser when the Wi-Fi access point is connected, and may optionally
be used by other apps. The proxy and IP configuration is now backed up
and restored across system updates and resets.
For developers, Android’s new version has extended possibilities
with new capabilities that developers can build on to create new and
powerful applications for tablets and smart phones. Some of the new
features for developers are:
• Open Accessory API for rich interaction with peripherals
• USB Host API
• Input from mice , Joystick and game pad
• Resizable home screen widgets
• MTP(Media transfer protocol) ATI for integrating with external cameras
• Real Time Transport – protocol (RTP) ATI for control over audio streaming sessions.
With all these new features Android 3.1 is making life more
comfortable and advanced. Now with advanced browser, gallery, calendar,
USB support, new hardwares supporting this OS are pretty convenient.
Cell phones have really evolved earlier features like camera and
music player but now latest hardwares not only support such features but
advanced use of such features as well as Bar code scanner, text scanner
etc which has made life better and simpler and Android has played an
instrumental role in this evolution with thousands of applications
available in Android market and open chance for developers to make it
more advanced and better. In a way Android has changed its users life
completely..........................
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