What is Android?

Introduction To Android

As we understand Android is an operating system and it has some amazing features which make it the popular as you see it today. Android provides an approach for application development for mobile devices that is unified and once developed for one type of device it can be used by all the devices built on Android. Android came into existence in 2007, a beta version of Android SDK (Software development kit) was released by Google, later the first commercial version was introduced in 2008 which was called Android 1.0. Since then several Android versions have been introduced and updated.

What Is Android?

• The cellphones/smartphones that we are using most of them are working on Android and this term is heard now and then associated with smartphones. In simple words one can understand Android as the operating system of mobiles, it’s like Windows of computers. It was developed by Google.
• “Android is nothing but an Operating system built on Linux and is open source, it is used in mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.”
• Understanding Android basically moves around how it is built and what it does in general. To answer how the Android applications are mostly developed using Java language which makes use of Android software development kit. To answer what it does is pretty simple, once any Android application is developed it can be easily packaged and then can be sold over different platforms like Google play store, Opera mobile store, Slide ME, and Amazon App Store.
• It is used all around the world, billions of cellphones have Android. Around the world, it is used in more than 190 countries and numbers are adding on daily basis. Apple has its iOS, which is not open source and is very much restricted, on the other hand, Android is open-source and developers have the freedom to modify and customize their phones according to their choice.

Layers Of Android Architecture

To understand Android architecture one needs to understand the stack of software components associated with it.

These components can be divided into 5 sections and can be described with 4 main layers as can be seen in below architectural diagram.

Let’s see it from bottom to top:

• Linux Kernel: It basically provides the abstraction between the different hardware drivers present in the device such as a keypad, display, camera, etc. It has approximately 115 patches. Kernel basically handles the networking part and provides smooth flow for creating an interface between a vast array of drivers available in the device.
• Libraries: It contains a set of open-source libraries from Web Browser Engine also known as WebKit or libc. libraries are nothing but an already written set of logics that can be directly used and applied. As it is open-source daily new libraries are getting added and a much more smooth experience can be felt.
• Android Runtime: Well to run the application we need runtime right for Android it is Android Runtime it is basically a type of Java Virtual Machine but is known as Dalvik Virtual Machine.
• Application Framework: Framework can be understood as the set of services from the java classes and can be used in applications.
• Application: Finally the Application part of the apps that you use in your phone to make your life easier are Android applications, you can directly download them from Google play store or other stores, some are free others comes with some cost associated.

Versions Available In Android

Given below are the versions mentioned:

• Blender
• KitKat
• Jelly Bean
• Honeycomb
• Lollipop
• Marshmallow

Conclusion

Android is a widely used OS for mobile devices and is used by billions of users worldwide. In this article, we have seen the overview of Android, its architecture and named a few versions of Androids.

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