Android OS

### Marketing target

Smartphones, tablet computers, smart TVs ( Android TV ) , Android auto and smartwatches

### License

Apache License 2.0 for userspace software GNU GPL v2 for the Linux kernel modifications

### Official website

www.android.com

**Android** is a mobile **Operating System** designed for touchscreen smartphones and tabletsj, developed by a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance and commercially sponsored by Google. It is also available for cars as Android Auto, televisions as Android TV, and smartwatches as Wear OS. Android uses touch inputs that loosely correspond to real-world actions such as swiping, tapping and pinching to manipulate on-screen objects, as well as a virtual keyboard, The unveiling of the Android distribution on November 5, 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 84 hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software license. The Android Open Source Project (AOSP)

## Android History

### Android Inc

California, United States in October 2003 by Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.), Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV) to develop, in Rubin's words "...smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences". Despite the obvious past accomplishments of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretly, revealing only that it was working on software for mobile phones. That same year, Rubin ran out of money. Steve Perlman brought him $10,000 in cash in an envelope and refused a stake in the company.

### Acquisition by Google

Google acquired Android Inc. in August 2005; key employees of Android Inc., including Rubin, Miner and White, stayed at the company after the acquisition.Not much was known about Android Inc. at the time of the acquisition, but many assumed that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market with this move.

### Post-acquisition development

At Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradable system. Google had lined up a series of hardware component and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation on their part.

### Open Handset Alliance

On November 5, 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, including Google, device manufacturers such as HTC, Sony and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, unveiled itself, with a goal to develop open standards for mobile devices. "Industry Leaders Announce Open Platform for Mobile Devices"] (Press release).  *Open Handset Alliance.]* November 5, 2007. Web. Retrieved February 17, 2012. On the same day, the Open Handset Alliance also unveiled their first product, Android, a mobile device platform built on the Linux kernel version 2.

In 2010, Google launched its Nexus series of devices – a line of smartphones and tablets running the Android operating system, and built by manufacturing partners. HTC collaborated with Google to release the first Nexus smartphone, the Google Nexus One|Nexus One. Google has since updated the series with newer devices, such as the Nexus 5 phone (made by LG) and the Nexus 7 tablet (made by Asus). Google releases the Nexus phones and tablets to act as their flagship Android devices, demonstrating Android's latest software and hardware features.

### Good Features

Applications ("apps"), that extend the functionality of devices, Apps are primarily written in Java and Kotlin and primarily developed using the Android software development kit (SDK). The SDK includes a comprehensive set of development tools, including a debugger, software libraries, a handset emulator based on QEMU, documentation, sample code, and tutorials. The officially supported integrated development environment (IDE) is Eclipse using the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin. Other development tools are available, including a Native Development Kit for applications or extensions in C or C++, Google App Inventor, a visual environment for novice programmers, and various cross platform mobile web applications frameworks. In January 2014, Google unveiled an Apache Cordova–based framework for porting Chrome HTML 5 applications to Android, wrapped in a native application shell.

Android has a growing selection of third-party applications, which can be acquired by users by downloading and installing the application's APK file, or by downloading them using an application store program that allows users to install, update, and remove applications from their devices. Google Play Store is the primary application store installed on Android devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements and license the Google Mobile Services software. Google Play Store allows users to browse, download and update applications published by Google and third-party developers; As of July 2013, there are more than one million applications available for Android in Play Store. As of May 2013, 48 billion applications have been installed from the Google Play Store and in July 2013, 50 billion applications were installed. Some carriers offer direct carrier billing for Google Play application purchases, where the cost of the application is added to the user's monthly bill.

Due to the open nature of Android, a number of third-party application marketplace also exist for Android, either to provide a substitute for devices that are not allowed to ship with Google Play Store, provide applications that cannot be offered on Google Play Store due to policy violations, or for other reasons. Examples of these third-party stores have included the Amazon Appstore, GetJar, and SlideMe. F-Droid, another alternative marketplace, seeks to only provide applications that are distributed under free and open source licenses.

### Memory management

Since Android devices are usually battery-powered, Android is designed to manage memory (RAM) to keep power consumption at a minimum, in contrast to desktop operating systems which generally assume they are connected to unlimited mains electricity. When an Android application is no longer in use, the system will automatically suspend it in memory; while the application is still technically "open", suspended applications consume no resources (for example, battery power or processing power) and sit idly in the background until needed again. This brings a dual benefit by increasing the general responsiveness of Android devices, since applications do not need to be closed and reopened from scratch each time, and by ensuring that background applications do not consume power needlessly.

Android manages the applications stored in memory automatically: when memory is low, the system will begin killing applications and processes that have been inactive for a while, in reverse order since they were last used (oldest first). This process is designed to be invisible to the user, so that users do not need to manage memory or the killing of applications themselves.

## Privacy and Security

### Privacy

Android smartphones have the ability to report the location of Wi-Fi access points, encountered as phone users move around, to build vast databases containing the physical locations of hundreds of millions of such access points. These databases form electronic maps to locate smartphones, allowing them to run apps like Foursquare, Latitude, Places, and to deliver location-based ads. One design issue is that average users cannot monitor how applications access and use private and sensitive data (e.g. location and hardware ID numbers). Even during installation, permission checks do not often indicate to the user how critical services and data will be used or misused. Third party monitoring software such as TaintDroid, an academic research-funded project, can identify personal information sent from applications to remote servers.

### Application security

Android applications run in a sandbox, an isolated area of the operating system that does not have access to the rest of the system's resources, unless access permissions are granted by the user when the application is installed. Before installing an application, Android Market displays all required permissions. A game may need to enable vibration, for example, but should not need to read messages or access the phonebook. After reviewing these permissions, the user can decide whether to install the application. Some Android malware incidents have been reported involving rogue applications on Android Market. In August 2010, Kaspersky Lab reported detection of the first malicious program for Android, named Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, an SMS trojan which had already infected a number of devices. In some cases applications which contained Trojans were hidden in pirated versions of legitimate apps. Google has responded by removing malicious apps from the Android Market, and remotely disabling them on infected devices.

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Note: Part of the Privacy issues can be mitigated by de-googing your Android device.

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## Android Devices

The open and customizable nature of the Android operating system allows it to be used on most electronics, including but not limited to: smartphones, laptops, netbooks, tablet computers, Google TV, wristwatches, headphones, Car CD and DVD players and other devices. The main hardware platform for Android is the ARM architecture. There is support for x86 from the Android-x86 project, and Google TV uses a special x86 version of Android.

### Phones

The first commercially available phone to run Android was the HTC Dream, released on 22 October 2008. In early 2010 Google collaborated with HTC to launch its flagship Android device, the Nexus One. This was followed later in 2010 with the Samsung-made Nexus S and in 2011 with the Galaxy Nexus. iOS and Android 2.33 'Gingerbread' may be set up to dual boot on a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch with the help of OpeniBoot and iDroid.

### Tablets

Android has be used in tablets since the release of Android 3.0 Honeycomb and the Motorola Xoom.

### Other Devices

The open and customizable nature of Android allows it to be used on other electronics aside from smartphones and tablets, including laptops and netbooks, smartbooks, smart TVs (Android TV, Google TV) and cameras (E.g. Galaxy Camera). In addition, the Android operating system has seen applications on smart glasses (Google Glass), smartwatches, headphones, car CD and DVD players, mirrors, portable media players, landline and Voice over IP phones. Ouya, a video game console running Android, became one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns, crowdfunding US$8.5m for its development, and was later followed by other Android-based consoles, such as Nvidia's Project Shield – an Android device in a video game controller form factor.

In 2011, Google demonstrated "Android@Home", a home automation technology which uses Android to control a range of household devices including light switches, power sockets and thermostats. Prototype light bulbs were announced that could be controlled from an Android phone or tablet, but Android head Andy Rubin was cautious to note that "turning a lightbulb on and off is nothing new", pointing to numerous failed home automation services. Google, he said, was thinking more ambitiously and the intention was to use their position as a cloud services provider to bring Google products into customers' homes.

Parrot unveiled an Android-based car stereo system known as Asteroid in 2011, followed by a successor, the touchscreen-based Asteroid Smart, in 2012. In 2013, Clarion released its own Android-based car stereo, the AX1. In January 2014 at Consumer Electronics Show, Google announced the formation of the Open Automotive Alliance, a group including several major automobile makers (Audi, General Motors, Hyundai, and Honda) and Nvidia, which aims to produce Android-based in car entertainment systems for automobiles, "bringing the best of Android into the automobile in a safe and seamless way.

1. ↑ Samsung (August 29, 2012). "Samsung Galaxy Camera." *Samsung.com*. Retrieved December 31, 2014.