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ANDROID - OVERVIEW
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_overview.htm Copyright tutorialspoint.com

What is Android?

Android is an open source and Linux-based Operating System for mobile devices such as smartphones and
tablet computers. Android was developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google, and other companies.

Android offers a unified approach to application development for mobile devices which means developers need
only develop for Android, and their applications should be able to run on different devices powered by Android.

The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit S DK was released by Google in 2007 where as
the first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.

On June 27, 2012, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced the next Android version, 4.1 Jelly Bean.
Jelly Bean is an incremental update, with the primary aim of improving the user interface, both in terms of
functionality and performance.

The source code for Android is available under free and open source software licenses. Google publishes most of
the code under the Apache License version 2.0 and the rest, Linux kernel changes, under the GNU General Public
License version 2.

Why Android ?

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Features of Android
Android is a powerful operating system competing with Apple 4GS and supports great features. Few of them are
listed below

Sr.No. Feature & Description

1
Beautiful UI

Android OS basic screen provides a beautiful and intuitive user interface.

2
Connectivity

GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC and WiMAX.

3
Storage

SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage purposes.

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Media support

H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB, AAC, HE-AAC, AAC 5.1, MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis,
WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.

5
Messaging

SMS and MMS

6
Web browser

Based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine
supporting HTML5 and CSS3.

7
Multi-touch

Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets such as
the HTC Hero.

8
Multi-tasking

User can jump from one task to another and same time various application can run simultaneously.

9
Resizable widgets

Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space.

10
Multi-Language

Supports single direction and bi-directional text.

11
GCM

Google Cloud Messaging GC M is a service that lets developers send short message data to their
users on Android devices, without needing a proprietary sync solution.

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Wi-Fi Direct

A technology that lets apps discover and pair directly, over a high-bandwidth peer-to-peer
connection.

13
Android Beam

A popular NFC-based technology that lets users instantly share, just by touching two NFC-enabled
phones together.

Android Applications
Android applications are usually developed in the Java language using the Android Software Development Kit.

Once developed, Android applications can be packaged easily and sold out either through a store such as Google
Play, SlideME, Opera Mobile Store, Mobango, F-droid and the Amazon Appstore.

Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices in more than 190 countries around the world. It's the
largest installed base of any mobile platform and growing fast. Every day more than 1 million new Android
devices are activated worldwide.

This tutorial has been written with an aim to teach you how to develop and package Android application. We will
start from environment setup for Android application programming and then drill down to look into various
aspects of Android applications.

Categories of Android applications

History of Android
The code names of android ranges from A to N currently, such as Aestro, Blender, Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo,
Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwitch, Jelly Bean, KitKat, Lollipop and Marshmallow. Let's understand

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the android history in a sequence.

What is API level?

API Level is an integer value that uniquely identifies the framework API revision offered by a
version of the Android platform.

Platform Version API Level VERSION_CODE

Android 6.0 23 MARSHMALLOW

Android 5.1 22 LOLLIPOP_MR1

Android 5.0 21 LOLLIPOP

Android 4.4W 20 KITKAT_WATCH KitKat for Wearables Only

Android 4.4 19 KITKAT

Android 4.3 18 JELLY_BEAN_MR2

Android 4.2, 4.2.2 17 JELLY_BEAN_MR1

Android 4.1, 4.1.1 16 JELLY_BEAN

Android 4.0.3, 4.0.4 15 ICE_CREAM_SANDWICH_MR1

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Android 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2 14 ICE_CREAM_SANDWICH

Android 3.2 13 HONEYCOMB_MR2

Android 3.1.x 12 HONEYCOMB_MR1

Android 3.0.x 11 HONEYCOMB

10 GINGERBREAD_MR1
Android 2.3.4

Android 2.3.3

9 GINGERBREAD
Android 2.3.2

Android 2.3.1

Android 2.3

Android 2.2.x 8 FROYO

Android 2.1.x 7 ECLAIR_MR1

Android 2.0.1 6 ECLAIR_0_1

Android 2.0 5 ECLAIR

Android 1.6 4 DONUT

Android 1.5 3 CUPCAKE

Android 1.1 2 BASE_1_1

Android 1.0 1 BASE

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