Android 1st Tutorial

What is Android

• A software platform and operating system for mobile devices
• Based on the Linux kernel
• Developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance (OHA)
• Allows writing managed code in the Java language

Introduction

• Possibility to write applications
native code (support of Google? No)
• Unveiling of the Android platform was announced on 5 November 2007
with the founding of OHA


What is the Open Handset Alliance

• Devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices
• Develop technologies that will significantly lower the cost of developing and
distributing mobile devices and services

Operating System(s)

• Android uses Linux for its device drivers, memory management, process
management, and networking.
• The next level up contains the Android native libraries. They are all written in
in C/C++ internally, but you’ll be calling them throutgh java interfaces. In this
layer you can find the Surface Manager, 2D and 3D graphics, Media
codecs, the SQL database (SQLite), and a native web browser engine

• Dalvik Virtual Machine. Dalvik runs dex files, which are converted at compile
time from standard class and jar files.

Network Connectivity
It supports wireless communications using:

• GSM mobile-phone technology3G
• Edge
• Platform
• Edge
• 802.11 Wi-Fi networks

Security
Android is a multi-process system, in which each application (and parts of the system) runs in its own process. Most security between applications and the system  is enforced at the process level through standard Linux facilities,such as user and group IDs that are assigned to applications.

Additional finer gained security features are provided through a “permission ” mechanism that enforces restrictions on the specific operations that a particular process can perform, and per-URI permissions for granting ad-hoc access to specific pieces of data.

Performance

Android Development

What you will need

Actually there are a lot of ways to get these setup up and running. But the most preferred way is to download the complete ADT bundle. Here is the link

Download ADT bundle 

Software Development

• Java – officially supported

• C/C++ – also possible but not supported

How Things work

Linux Kernel

• Works as a HAL (Hardware abstractionLayer)

• Device drivers

• Memory management

• Process management

• Networking

Libraries

• C/C++ libraries

• Interface through Java

• Surface manager – Handling UI Windows

• 2D and 3D graphics

• Media codecs, SQLite, Browser engine

Android Runtime

• Dalvik VM

– Dex files

– Compact and efficient than class files

– Limited memory and battery power

• Core Libraries

– Java 5 Std edition

– Collections, I/O etc…

Application Framework

• API interface

• Activity manager – manages application

life cycle.

Applications

• Built in and user apps

• Can replace built in apps

 Overall Evaluation

There are a host of advantages that Google’s Android will derive from being and open source software. Some of the advantages include

• The ability for anyone to customize the Google Android platform
• The consumer will benefit from having a wide range of mobile applications to choose from since the monopoly will be broken by Google Android
• Men will be able to customize a mobile phones using Google Android platform like never before
• Features like weather details, opening screen, live RSS feeds and even the icons on the opening screen will be able to be customized
• As a result of many mobile phones carrying Google Android, companies will come up with such innovative products like the location
• In addition the entertainment functionalities will be taken a notch higher by Google Android being able to offer online real time multiplayer games