ANDROID Introduction
ANDROID
Android is the most popular mobile operating systems.
What is Android
➔ Android is an operating system based on Linux mainly for mobile devices like smartphones but it can run other devices also like watches, set top box , tablets, laptop etc.
➔ Google maintain, update, promote and commercially sponsor android. Android is an open source platform, anyone can customize the source code.
➔ Android SDK helps developers or programmers to build applications for Android operating system.
Versions
➔ Android 16 (2025): Android 16 focuses on AI enhancements, along with other previous improvements.
➔ Android versions started being released with a numerical name starting with version 10. For example, Android 10.
➔ On Sep, 2008 first version of android 1.0 with API level 1 was released and second version 1.1 was released on Feb, 2009 with API level 2. From API level 3 google started using desserts kind of name as their product Code Name. Google made decision to ditch the traditional dessert item name from android version 10 and afterward. The list bellow shows the android version names and their API level.
History
➔ Android Inc. started android project as a operating system for digital camera in 2003 , but later changed their mind and they came to a decision to develop an operating system for mobile devices.
➔ In 2005 Google bought Android Inc and continue the development process of android project in a large scale. Google formed Open Handset Alliance(OHA) a consortium of mobile telephone company and other tech giant companies and declared android system is an open source.
➔ Google released the very first commercial version of android 1.0 driven smartphone HTC Dream on September 2008. Mobile companies use Google Mobile Services (GMS) along with the Android OS as a pre-installed software. Now, It is about 75 percent of smartphones around the world run by android operating system.