- We all are familiar with the word “Android” today but majority of us who are not familiar with technology or are not from technical background thinks that android means “Smartphone” or one kind of mobile phone.
- So in this article we are going to take a brief overview about what the Android actually mean.
- After reading this article at least you will have a basic knowledge about the Android.
Definition:
- The Word “Android” comes from the term android, which is something like robot designed to look and act like a human being.
- In general, an Android is a mobile operating system which was designed for touch screen devices such as mobiles and tablets.
- Today it is used by various smartphones and tablets such as Samsung Galaxy, Motorola, HTC, Sony Xperia and the Google Nexus One etc.
- Besides this, Google has currently developed Android TV for televisions, Android Auto for cars and Android Wear for wrist watches, each with a specialized user interface.
- It uses the interface of direct manipulations of objects using touch gestures correspond to real-world actions, such as swiping, tapping and pinching to manipulate on-screen objects.
- It comes with a virtual keyboard for text input.
- It was initially developed by Android, Inc., which Google bought in 2005.
- Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance – a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.
- The Android operating system is based on the Linux kernel.
- Android Operating System is open source that means developers can modify and customize the OS for each phone.
- Android’s source code is released by Google under open source licenses.
- There are different Android-based phones available in the market each having different graphical user interfaces (GUIs) but they all run under the same OS.
- Android phones typically come with several built-in applications and also support third-party programs.
- By using free Android software developer kit (SDK) developers can create programs for Android.
- Android programs are written in Java and run through a JVM– Java virtual machine that is optimized for mobile devices.
- The “Dalvik” JVM was used through Android 4.4 and it was replaced by Android Runtime or “ART” in Android 5.0.
- Users can download and install Android apps either from Google Play Store or from other locations but the Google Play Store is more authorized and trusted one.
- If you don’t know what operating system your phone or tablet uses, you can view the system information by selecting “About” in the Settings menu of your Android phone.
- You can also use this information to see if your device meets an app’s system requirements.