Introduction to Android Platform Overview

Content Introduction to Android Market Share Architecture Comparisons between Android and others Advantage and disadvantage Specialty of Android

What is Android? Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.

Android Linux based mobile phone operating system Developed by Google Open software platform for mobiles Fast application development in Java An Open Handset Alliance (OHA) project

OHA (Open Handset Alliance) OHA consist of 47 companies to develop open standards for mobile devices

Phones HTC One Motorola Droid Samsung Galaxy Sony Xperia Google Nexus LG Optimus

Google Nexus Asus TransformerKindle Fire Samsung Galaxy Tab Toshiba Android SmartBook Motorola Xoom Tablets

Market Share

Architecture

Applications Android provides a set of core applications: Client SMS Program Calendar Maps Browser Contacts All applications written by Java language

Developers have full access to the framework APIs allow to reuse components Application framework

FeatureRole View System Used to build an application, GUI Objects and embedded web browser Content Provider Enables applications to access data from other applications, or to share their own data Resource Manager Provides access to non-code resources (graphics, and layout files) Notification Manager Enables applications to display customer alerts in the status bar Activity Manager Manages the lifecycle of applications. Provides common navigation back stack Application framework

A set of C/C++ libraries Used by components of the Android system Developers can use through the Android application framework Libraries

Core Libraries Provides most functionalities for: Data Structures Utilities File Access Network Access Graphics Runtime

Dalvik Virtual Machine Executing the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format Optimized for minimal memory footprint Compilation Rely on the Linux Kernel for: -Threading -Low-level memory management

Linux Kernel Relies on Linux Kernel 2.6 for core system services Memory and Process Management Network Stack Driver Model Security Provides an abstraction layer between the H/W and the rest of the S/W stack

AndroidSymbian Multiple Home Screen5 Multiple Home Screens You can change the base firmware You can never the base firmware Android market has 200,000 apps. Nokia store has around 40,000 apps. Supports multi-core processors (dual/quad core) Single core processors up to 1 GHz Supports more than 2 GB of RAM Supports up to 512 MB of RAM

AndroidWindows Phone Open-sourceClosed-source Association with Google search, Google Maps, Google Voice apps Association with Bing search, Bing Maps, Bing Voice Support Multitasking Supports multitasking only in Windows 8 Full support Multiple Account Sync., No Outlook require Gmail support only though Outlook

Advantages Open Source Platform Multitasking capable to run many applications same time Easy access easy access to lot of free and premium apps Easy notification of any SMS and Widgetized home screen easy access to settings quickly and easily

Disadvantages Open source Anyone can scrutinize the source code Problem of Security For Administrative changes, need to know Linux commands Unstable and prone to crashes compared to other Mobile OS Poor supports for online games Poor battery backup

Summary of Android A component based architecture Browser and map views can be embedded directly in your applications Automatic management of application life cycle High quality graphics and sound Portability across a wide range of hardware