WHAT IS ANDROID OS?
The Android OS is an operating system developed by Google and the "Open Handset Alliance (OHA)". Android OS is an embedded operating system based on Linux platform for mobile phones. It was released under the Apache v2 open source license. Created to work on smartphones and tablet PCs. The operating system began its life as a Palo Alto-based startup company in 2003, which lost most of its shares to Google Incorporation in 2005.
The android OS has supports for applications such as facebook, Google, twitter and other downloadable applications such as Google map, dictionary, messengers, games and other basic applications and utility programs such as Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G communication protocols, like EV-DO and HSDPA,WiFi, SMS messaging, MMS, video/still digital cameras, touch screens, GPS, compasses, accelerometers, accelerated 3D graphics.
HISTORIC BACKGROUND OF ANDROID
The founder is Andrew Rubin. Android was originated by a group of companies known as the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google. Today, many companies -- both original members of the OHA and others -- have invested heavily in Android, typically in the form of allocating significant engineering resources to improve Android and bring Android devices to Market.“We created Android in response to our own experiences launching mobile apps. We wanted to make sure that there would always be an open platform available for carriers, OEMs, and developers to use to make their innovative ideas a reality. We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, where one industry player could restrict or control the innovations of any other. The solution we chose was an open and open-source platform”-Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.
The goal of the Android Open Source Project is to create a successful real-world product that improves the mobile experience for end users.
Android has developed into various versions such as follows:
Android 1.0 Angel Cake
Released 23rd September, 2008. This is where the dream began. The world’s first open source mobile OS gave manufacturers, developers and bedroom coders carte blanche to get creative with user-interface designs, widgets and apps. At this stage Google didn’t have an obsession with giving each OS release a cake-based moniker, so in the name of continuity we christen Android 1.0 Angel Cake.
Android 1.1 Battenberg
Released 9th February,2009. Again the alphabetical dessert OS nicknames hadn’t kicked in yet, so we’re calling 1.1 Battenberg. This update didn’t really bring many new stellar features to the table, instead just a few tweaks here and there, ironed out those pesky bugs and glitches and improved overall performance.
Android 1.5 Cupcake
Released 30th April,2009. This is where the updates started to get serious and Google raided its patisserie dictionary for OS codenames. Cupcake delivered video recording capabilities, the uploading of videos and snaps to YouTube and Picasa, Stereo Bluetooth (aka A2DP) so you can wirelessly stream music to compatible headphones or speakers, while the onscreen keyboard got text prediction.
Android 1.6 Donut
Released 15th September, 2009. Donut brought more major features enhancements the biggest of which was Google Maps with turn-by-turn navigation for gratis. The Android Market became a friendly place to shop for apps while voice and universal search facilities were sharper – to name but a few.
Android 2.0/2.1 Éclair
Released 26th October 2010. The naughty-but-nice-Éclair, didn’t serve up too many headline features but there was still enough to get excited about. The UI and browser were giving a revamp, phone cameras could now take snaps in lowlight thanks to built flash support and live wallpapers liven up your home screens with animation.
Android 2.2 Froyo
Released 20th May,2010. Froyo, short for Frozen Yogurt, broke the cake nickname rule (what was wrong with Fairy Cake or French Fancy?) but along with a general performance retune to improve the OS speed and support for hi-res, hi-def screen resolutions the two key feature introductions were USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot plus support for Adobe Flash 10.1 for watching videos from the phone’s web browser.
Android 2.3 Gingerbread
Released 6th December,2010. After the detour with frozen dairy products we’re back to familiar biscuit based OS upgrades with Gingerbread. The newest Smartphone OS release sees Google introduce the much touted NFC (Near Field Communications) tech that will let you make mobile payments or swipe a poster tag to receive info and free goodies for example. Elsewhere internet calling contacts are integrated into your phonebook, app management has been improved while the virtual QWERTY is redesigned for more accurate typing.
Android 3.0 Honeycomb
Released 2nd February,2011. Finally we arrive at the latest made-for-tablet instalment. Google launched the Honeycomb 3.0.
Android 3.1
It is an incremental platform release that refines many of the features introduced in Android 3.0. It builds on the same tablet-optimized UI and features offered in Android 3.0 and adds several new capabilities for users and developers. This document provides an overview of the new features and technologies introduced in Android 3.1. For a more detailed look at new developer APIs, see the API Overview document.
Android 3.2
It is an incremental platform release that adds new capabilities for users and developers. The sections below provide an overview of the new features and developer APIs.
For developers, the Android 3.2 platform is available as a downloadable component for the Android SDK. The downloadable platform includes an Android library and system image, as well as a set of emulator skins and more. The downloadable platform includes no external libraries.
To get started developing or testing against Android 3.2, use the Android SDK Manager to download the platform into your SDK. For more information, see Adding SDK Components. If you are new to Android, download the SDK Starter Package first.
Android 3.3 HoneyComb
Google is expected to preview the new Android version 3.3. This version is known as ‘Honeycomb’. Android 3.3 is a special version of Android 3.3. This version is designed just for tablet devices. Google sent invitations on to developers to have a hands-on with the new version. The hands-on event was held in California on February 2nd,2011.
THE FEATURES OF ANDROID OS
Full control over the applications
The Android OS have a shortcut menu built specially for the full control over the applications installed on the phone. Like the notification bar is dedicated for this purpose, and the user can also create his own shortcut. This makes it easy for the user to check, close or switch between running applications.
Improved Battery Life Management.
The new Android OS now has a new battery power management programs and tools, to help maintain long lasting battery life, by closing the necessary application that is not needed at that point in time.
One-touch word selection
The user now has the ability as provided in the new Android OS, to copy and paste a text from a text file or web pages, by just touch-press down and move the finger, then the desired text(s) will be highlighted and then copied to the clipboard ready for pasting.
The new Android Os now have a new platform support for games, now giving gamers more fun than ever.
“Concurrent garbage collector — The Dalivik VM introduces a new, concurrent garbage collector that minimizes application pauses, helping to ensure smoother animation and increased responsiveness in games and similar applications.
Faster event distribution — The platform now handles touch and keyboard events faster and more efficiently, minimizing CPU utilization during event distribution. The changes improve responsiveness for all applications, but especially benefit games that use touch events in combination with 3D graphics or other CPU-intensive operations.
Updated video drivers — The platform uses updated third-party video drivers that improve the efficiency of OpenGL ES operations, for faster overall 3D graphics performance.”
Music
The new Android Os now has the ability to support more additional file formats, such as the media (AAC, FLAC, and MP3), image files (JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP), video files (MPEG-4SP and vp8) and the encoded AMR.
MOBILES PHONES THAT USES THE ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM
The mobiles phones that are run by the Android OS are as followed
Motorola Cliq (T-Mobile / Available October 19)
Motorola Sholes (Verizon / Available October 30)
Samsung Behold II (T-Mobile / Holidays 2009)
Samsung Moment (Sprint / November 1)
Huawei Pulse (T-Mobile UK / Available)
HTC Hero (Sprint / Available)
HTC Tattoo (Vodafone UK / Available)
HTC Magic /myTouch 3G (T-Mobile / Available)
HTC Dream/G1 (T-Mobile / Available)
Dell Mini i13 (China Mobile / Confirmed, Release Date TBA)
Acer Liquid (Unknown / Confirmed, Release Date TBA)
LG GW620 (Unknown / Confirmed, Q4 2009)
And lots more others.
ADVANATGES OF THE ANDROID OS
The Android OS have a customizable interface, i.e. menus that users can change to suit their own taste and fashion. This then makes the Google Android OS a very user friendly OS for most users whom are not rich or having the money at hand to spend on costly phones having the type of interface or menu look they are wanting to own.
The Android OS is an open-source code, where many programmer and developers would try to create, innovate and close the clear and present loop-hole in the OS programming. This then increases the level of risk that the OS is or will be facing in the future. And with this open-source coding in progress, there is actually no competitor to sneak around trying to see who is more creative than he is, because it is not a competition line, but a development and innovation line.
Android applications are allowed to access the phone and run on a normal basses like a normal application on a computer would. This is why it is very easy for a new notification to be revealed on the Android notification bar. For security sake, during the installation of the new application, security measures will be taken by the users as questionable by the application, either asking for permission to use the internet connection, or making use of a particular amount of memory space, or even reading the state of the phone or its internal specifications. This is a one in a life time security measure.
THE WEAKNESS OF ANDROID OS
The Android OS does not have a built-in file manager, a program application to organize the user’s stored data, such as images, videos, and other documents, in a neat and accessible order unlike other smart phones.
There is no built-in task manager program application on the Android OS, that will enable users to close any running application from the home screen, or switch between running applications, from the home screen or from on running application to another. And also, with the task manager, users can view the number of running applications from anywhere in the phone, whether from the home screen or from a running application.
For game lovers, there is no much hope for them using the Android OS as the operating system for their games, because it has no much support for games and have less games available in the market. Most games offered by game designers/developers and manufacturer and some other popular operating systems like the Apple iOS and the Symbian OS are not readily available for the Android OS. This is then a major problem for the game lovers, because for a smartphone been able to accept most games in many other formats are one of the advancements and necessary ability that a smartphone should have.
COMPARISM OF ANDROID OS AND IPHONE IOS
Multitasking
The android OS can run several apps at the same time, either on the background or as an open application. The android is well known for its ability of multitasking
at the same time regardless of what the tasking applications may be, whether a native (i.e. in-built) application or a foreign (i.e. downloaded and Installed) application. It has basically no know limit of multitasking. Unlike the Apple iOS, it has a limit of multitasking, and only allows native applications, to run on the background. So the users of Android benefits more when
the question of multitasking arises.
Android running tasks/applications is easily accessed
Right from the desktop of an Android OS, all active applications can be seen and accessed without the need to open the application again or a third party application to access it. This is because there are widgets for almost all the applications installable in the Android operating system. While in the Apple iOS, users have to flip over the list of applications installed, to locate and re-launch them again. This makes the Apple iOS users slow in checking their already running applications.
Android Gives You Better Notifications
As the Apple iOS have limited application on the line of multitasking, the notification waiting have to get its application opened by the user so, the waiting notification can be seen. For example if a new mail is received, when the mail application is not running, it won't be notified to the user, unless he opens the mail application. But the Android OS have the ability to notify the user on the new mail. This is because the Android OS have an application, a notification bar set aside for this purpose.
With Android, choosing your hardware is easy
Apple iOS users are not allowed to choose the hardware they want to run their OS on neither can they change their hardware, this is because the Apple iphones are not flexible, they only have one operating system installed and that can be installed on it, the Apple iOS. But the Android OS can run virtually on any mobile platform because the manufacturers have the freedom to pair their operating system with any hardware they want like the Nexus One (with 3.7-inch, 480x800 pixel display, 512MB of RAM, and 1GHz Snapdragon processor) or the Motorola Droid which has a physical keypad.
Android Lets You Install Custom ROMs
In both the iphone and the Android phones, installing specials applications that are not provided by the manufacturers are possible. But for the iphone iOS, the phones software looks, i.e. the desktop and menu, are still the same there is no change made. With the Android OS, a special Read Only Memories (ROM) is made to meet this demand of changing the looks of the Android device when such an application is installed.
THE FUTURE OF ANDROID OS
The new Android OS is the Android 3.0.
“Android 3.0 aka Honeycomb is out now and will continue to be upgraded and will more than likely evolve in to 4.0 and 5.0 and so on, but what about the phone version of Android?
Currently the phone issue of Android sits at version 2.3 (although it has yet to arrive on every device) and Android 2.4 aka Ice Cream Sandwich is already strutting it’s stuff on prototype devices, but within a few versions the phone version of Android is going to have to evolve in to a 3.0, however by that point it will have already swallowed up a few of Honeycomb’s tablet ready features.
Google has already stated that the phone version of Android will receive some of Honeycombs advanced features and UI tweaks, and it looks like we will start seeing some overlap as early as Android 2.4, so the line between phone and tablet OS is already beginning to blur.
The phone version of Android will support pretty much any size screen, and has already found itself used on the 7 inch Galaxy tablet and in a lesser extent on 10 inch Chinese made tablets, the only problem with this was that applications don’t always want to play nice on these larger screens, however with future version of Android 2.4+ and the advent of larger mobile phone screen, 4 inch +, we will see Google implement ways in which Android can stretch applications to make use of all the screen real estate available to it”.
REFERENCES
Escallier, P. (2010), “Comparism of android OS and iPhone OS” Adopted at
13-10-2011, URL:
Engineeringarage.com (n.d), “Historic background of Android OS” Adopted at 5-10-2011, URL: http://www.engineersgarage.com/articles/what-is-android-introduction#introduction
Tam, C. (2009), “What is Android?” Adopted from 13-10-2011, URL: http://www.studentwebstuff.com/mis/showthread.php?t=8363
Wapalize.co.uk (2008), “Advantages of the Android OS” Adopted at 13-10-2011, URL: http://www.wapalize.co.uk/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-google%E2%80%99s-android-smart-phones/
Randybryan.com (n.d), “Top 4 advantages of Android over the iPhone” Adopted date 13-10-2011, URL: http://randybryan.com/?p=671
Roark, R. (2011), “12 phones strong, Android Army mobilizes for explosive growth” Adopted at 13-10-2011, URL: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/android/
Developer.android.com (n.d) “The features of android OS”, Adopted at 13-10-2011, URL: http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3-highlights.html
searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com (2007), “Introduction”, Adopted at 13-10-2011, URL: http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/definition/Android
androidostablets.com (2011), “The future of Android OS”, Adopted at 14-10-2011,
No comments:
Post a Comment