Android OS Seminar Report
Android OS Seminar Report
A SEMINAR REPORT
Submitted by
Vikas dhiman
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
At
ABSTRACT i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii
CHAPTER 1
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Android 1
1.2.3 Hardware 1
1.3 Features 2
CHAPTER 2 4
2. DETAILED DESCRIPTION 4
2.1 Architecture 4
2.5 Comparison 10
2.6 Advantages 14
2.7 Disadvantages 14
CHAPTER 3 15
4. APPENDICES 16
Appendix 1 16
Appendix 2 17
5. LIST OF REFERENCES 18
ABSTRACT
The unveiling of the Android platform on was announced with the founding of the Open
Handset Alliance, a consortium of 48 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to
advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google has made most of the Android platform
available under the Apache free-software and open source license.
Android is a freely downloadable open source software stack for mobile devices that includes
an operating system, middleware and key applications based on Linux and Java.
Google developed Android collaboratively as part of the Open Handset Alliance, a group of
more than 30 mobile and technology companies working to open up the mobile handset
environment. Android's development kit supports many of the standard packages used by
Jetty, and so, due to that fact and Jetty's modularity and lightweight footprint, it was possible
to port Jetty to it so that it will be able to run on theAndroidplatform.
This paper on Android deals with the history of the Android, the early prototypes, basic
building blocks of an android application and the features of the android.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
“The satisfaction and euphoria that accompany the successful completion of any task, would
not be complete without mention of the people who made it possible because success is the
epitome of hard work, and undeterred missionary zeal, steady fast determination unperturbed
concentration and dedication and above all adept advice .So with deep gratitude we
acknowledge all those for their advices and encouragement which server as beacon light.”
We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the valuable help and guidance
received from Mrs. Shikha Mishra (LECT. CSE DEPT) and Mrs. Shweta Mishra (LECT.
CSE DEPT) in spite of their extremely busy schedule. They not only give us their valuable
time but also provide info details regarding project.
We sincerely express our grateful to the staff of computer Science Deptt. Who stood behind
us like our backbone and with whom this project could never have been presented in the
present form.
VIKAS DHIMAN
071114
CSE B2
CHAPTER 1:
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Android
Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware
and key applications. Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices
based on the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset
Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in a Java-like language that utilizes
Google-developed Java libraries, but does not support programs developed in native code.
The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the
founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecom
companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. When released in 2008,
most of the Android platform will be made available under the Apache free-software and
open-source license.
1.2.3 Hardware
Google has unveiled at least three prototypes for Android, at the Mobile World Congress on
February 12, 2008. One prototype at the ARM booth displayed several basic Google
applications. A 'd-pad' control zooming of items in the dock with a relatively quick response.
A prototype at the Google IO conference on May 28, 2008 had a 528 MHz Qualcomm
processor and a Synaptics capacitive touch screen, and used the UMTS cellular standard. It
had 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB of flash, showing that Android's memory requirements are
reasonable. The demo was carried out using a 3.6 Mbit/s HSDPA connection.
1.3 FEATURES
Application Framework
It is used to write applications for Android. Unlike other embedded mobile environments,
Android applications are all equal, for instance, an applications which come with the
phone are no different than those that any developer writes.The framework is supported
by numerous open source libraries such as openssl, SQLite and libc. It is also
supported by the Android core libraries. From the point of security, the framework is
based on UNIX file system permissions that assure applications have only those abilities that
mobile phone owner gave them at install time.
Integrated Browser
Google made a right choice on choosing WebKit as open source web browser. They added a
two pass layout and frame flattening. Two pass layout loads a page without waiting for
blocking elements, such as external CSS or external JavaScript and after a while renders
again with all resources downloaded to the device. Frame flattening converts founded
frames into single one and loads into the browser. These features increase speed and
usability browsing the internet via mobile phone.
Optimized Graphics
As Android has 2D graphics library and 3D graphics based on OpenGL ES 1.0,
possibly we will see great applications like Google Earth and spectacular games like
Second Life, which come on Linux version. At this moment, the shooting legendary 3D
game Doom was presented using Android on the mobile phone.
SQLite
Extremely small (~500kb) relational database management system, which is integrated in
Android. It is based on function calls and single file, where all definitions, tables and data are
stored. This simple design is more than suitable for a platform such as Android.
Handset Layouts
The platform is adaptable to both larger, VGA, 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library
based on OpenGL ES 1.0 specifications, traditional smart phone layouts. An underlying 2D
graphics engine is also included. Surface Manager manages access to the display subsystem
and seamlessly composites 2D and 3D graphic layers from multiple applications
Data Storage
SQLite is used for structured data storage .SQLite is a powerful and lightweight relational
database engine available to all applications.
Connectivity
Android supports a wide variety of connectivity technologies including GSM, CDMA,
Bluetooth, EDGE, EVDO, 3G and Wi-Fi.
Messaging
SMS, MMS, and XMPP are available forms of messaging including threaded text messaging.
Web Browser
The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source WebKit application
framework. It includes LibWebCore which is a modern web browser engine which powers
both the Android browser and an embeddable web view.
Media Support
Android will support advanced audio/video/still media formats such as MPEG-4, H.264,
MP3, and AAC, AMR, JPEG, PNG, GIF.
Development Environment
Includes a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, a plugin
for the Eclipse IDE. There are a number of hardware dependent features, for instance, a
huge media and connections support, GPS, improved support for Camera and simply GSM
telephony. A great work was done for the developers to start work with Android using
device emulator, tools for debugging and plugin for Eclipse IDE.
CHAPTER 2:
2. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
2..1 ARCHITECTURE
The following diagram shows the major components of the Android operating system. Each
section is described in more detail below.
Android Architecture is based on Linux 2.6 kernel. It helps to manage security, memory
management, process management, network stack and other important issues. Therefore, the
user should bring Linux in his mobile device as the main operating system and install all the
drivers required in order to run it. Android provides the support for the Qualcomm MSM7K
chipset family. For instance, the current kernel tree supports Qualcomm MSM 7200A
chipsets, but in the second half of 2008 we should see mobile devices with stable version
Qualcomm MSM 7200, which includes major features:
At the same level there is Android Runtime, where the main component Dalvik Virtual
Machine is located. It was designed specifically for Android running in limited environment,
where the limited battery, CPU, memory and data storage are the main issues. Android gives
an integrated tool “dx”, which converts generated byte code from .jar to .dex file, after this
byte code becomes much more efficient to run on the small processors.
As the result, it is possible to have multiple instances of Dalvik virtual machine running on
the single device at the same time. The Core libraries are written in Java language and
contains of the collection classes, the utilities, IO and other tools.
After that, there is Application Framework, written in Java language. It is a toolkit that all
applications use, ones which come with mobile device like Contacts or SMS box, or
applications written by Google and any Android developer. It has several components.
The Activity Manager manages the life circle of the applications and provides a common
navigation back stack for applications, which are running in different processes. The Package
Manager keeps track of the applications, which are installed in the device. The Windows
Manager is Java programming language abstraction on the top of lower level services that are
provided by the Surface Manager.
The Telephony Manager contains of a set of API necessary for calling applications.
Content Providers was built for Android to share a data with other applications, for instance,
the contacts of people in the address book can be used in other applications too. The
Resource Manager is used to store localized strings, bitmaps, layout file descriptions and
other external partsof the application. The View System generates a set of buttons and lists
used in UI. Other components like Notification manager is used to customize display alerts
and other functions.
To determine which processes should be killed when low on memory, Android places each
process into an "importance hierarchy" based on the components running in them and the
state of those components
1. A visible process is one holding an Activity that is visible to the user on-
screen but not in the foreground (its onPause() method has been called). This may
occur, for example, if the foreground Activity is displayed as a dialog that allows
the previous Activity to be seen behind it. Such a process is considered extremely
important and will not be killed unless doing so is required to keep all foreground
processes running.
2. A service process is one holding a Service that has been started with the
startService() method. Though these processes are not directly visible to the user,
they are generally doing things that the user cares about (such as background mp3
playback or background network data upload or download), so the system will
always keep such processes running unless there is not enough memory to retain
all foreground and visible process.
3. A background process is one holding an Activity that is not currently visible to
the user (its onStop() method has been called). These processes have no direct
impact on the user experience. Provided they implement their Activity life-cycle
correctly (see Activity for more details), the system can kill such processes at any
time to reclaim memory for one of the three previous processes types. Usually
there are many of these processes running, so they are kept in an LRU list to
ensure the process that was most recently seen by the user is the last to be killed
when running low on memory.
4. An empty process is one that doesn't hold any active application components.
The only reason to keep such a process around is as a cache to improve startup
time the next time a component of its application needs to run. As such, the
system will often kill these processes in order to balance overall system resources
between these empty cached processes and the underlying kernel caches.
Figure 2.3 : Flowchart Showing The Lifecycle Of An Activity
Developers have full access to the same framework APIs used by the core applications. The
application architecture is designed to simplify the reuse of components; any application can
publish its capabilities and any other application may then make use of those capabilities
(subject to security constraints enforced by the framework). This same mechanism allows
components to be replaced by the user.
1. A rich and extensible set of Views that can be used to build an application,
including lists, grids, text boxes, buttons, and even an embeddable web browser
2. Content Providers that enable applications to access data from other applications
(such as Contacts), or to share their own data
3. A Resource Manager, providing access to non-code resources such as localized
strings, graphics, and layout files
4. An Activity Manager that manages the life cycle of applications and provides a
common navigation backstack
The feedback on developing applications for the Android platform has been mixed. Issues
cited include bugs, lack of documentation, inadequate QA .The first publicly available
application was the Snake game.
Figure 2.12
2.4 SECURITY ISSUES
Android mobile phone platform is going to be more secure than Apple’s iPhone or any other
device in the long run. There are several solutions nowadays to protect Google phone from
various attacks. One of them is security vendor McAfee, a member of Linux Mobile (LiMo)
Foundation. This foundation joins particular companies to develop an open mobile-device
software platform. Many of the companies listed in the LiMo Foundation have also become
members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA).
As a result, Linux secure coding practice should successfully be built into the Android
development process. However, open platform has its own disadvantages, such as source
code vulnerability for black-hat hackers. In parallel with great opportunities for mobile
application developers, there is an expectation for exploitation and harm. Stealthy Trojans
hidden in animated images, particular viruses passed from friend to friend, used for spying
and identity theft, all these threats will be active for a long run.
Another solution for such attacks is SMobile Systems mobile package. SecurityShield –an
integrated application that includes anti-virus, anti-spam, firewall and other mobile protection
is up and ready to run on the Android operating system. Currently, the main problem is
availability for viruses to pose as an application and do things like dial phone numbers, send
text messages or multi-media messages or make connections to the Internet during normal
device use. It is possible for somebody to use the GPS feature to
track a person’s location without their knowledge. Hence SMobile Systems is ready to notify
and block these secure alerts. But the truth is that it is not possible to secure your mobile
device or personal computer completely, as it connects to the internet. And neither the
Android phone nor other devices will prove to be the exception.
2.5 COMPARISON
Google Android enters a tangled mess of cellular carrier world. As a new player in the mobile
market, Android brings an open platform with the new rules. On the one hand there is OHA
with major companies and carries, such as T-Mobile and Sprint. On the other hand, there are
two largest cellular carries AT&T and Verizon Wireless in United States, which have a
vested interest in operating systems of their own. It is predictable,that Sprint or T-Mobile will
be first carriers providing devices with Google Android. This ensures equal development
time for the networks, GSM side and CDMA.But the main problem, which faces all the
cellular carriers around the world, is the availability to download and use free applications
that could block almost every communications product they sell. A user does not need to pay
for GPS mapping service anymore. He can simply download a free one that taps into Google
Maps.
2.5.2 Manufacturers’ War
Presently, Google main competitors like Nokia, Microsoft and Apple do not see Google
Android as a serious rival or threat to their business strategies. However, the current situation
is not so unsophisticated. There is a huge flurry in the companies, which are not in the list of
OHA.
For instance, Nokia, which is the largest handset manufacturer in the world, nowadays
owning some 39% market share, was one of the companies snubbed on the invitation list to
the 34-party Open Handset Alliance that is growing daily.
In contrast, Nokia is buying companies and dumping cash into development, while Google is
releasing an open platform hoping the applications and services will build themselves with
the help of a strong developer community, development contests and large alliance of grand
companies.
Despite of this, Nokia is ready to combat whatever Google has to throw with Google Android
in 2008. Another company Apple has already stroked the market with iPhone and its closed
operating system. Accordingly, iPhone in the US remains loyal to AT&T mobile carrier for
five years.
That is plenty of time for Google to conquer the market with open Android.Obvious
advantage of Android is cost: while iPhone is priced at a weighty $400, Google says it hopes
to reach a more mainstream market by pricing Android-powered devices at around $200.
Microsoft, selling 21 millions copies of Windows Mobile software, stays calm at this point,
waiting for some particular results from Google Android.
This nice and healthy competition is just what the mobile industry needs at the moment,at
least for the consumers. The wars being waged between Google and the field will onlycreate
better, cheaper handsets and more advanced applications.
A new generation of mobile device users is coming in the next decade. These users are going
to explore the mobile internet afresh with its new features, compatible mobile phones, new
services and applications.
This is a huge leap for mobile advertisement business, where revenue could rise 8 times more
by 2012. Google Android is going to present new solutions through the fast search engine,
open source applications and other services.
The Kelsey Group, which works with public opinion polls and statistics, published the results
released October 11 2007,which say, that one hundred out of 500, or 20 percent of people
would be interested in purchasing a Google phone. Despite the fact, that Google Android is in
alpha version and it is unknown for the customers and mobile market, the results look
promising.
The diagram below shows the study, which was conducted in September 2007 via an online
30-question survey of 500 U.S. mobile phone users aged 18 and older. People do not find a
good Internet experience in their phones today, so they are more interested in gravitating
toward an Internet or technology company telephone
Figure 2.13
because they think connectivity between devices and to the Internet is going to be much
better on those phones. They use Google search, GMail, Google Maps, Picasa albums and
other popular services on their computers, and this is what they expect to have in their mobile
devices in the close future.
There are already many mobile platforms on the market today, including Symbian, iPhone,
Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Java Mobile Edi-tion, Linux Mobile (LiMo), and more.
While some of its features have appeared before, Android is the first environment that
combines:
• A truly open, free development platform based on Linux and open source. Handset
makers like it because they can use and customize the platform without paying a
royalty. Developers like it because they know that the platform “has legs” and is not
locked into any one vendor that may go under or be acquired.
• A component-based architecture inspired by Internet mash-ups. Partsof one
application can be used in another in ways not originallyenvisioned by the developer.
You can even replace built-in components with your own improved versions. This
will unleash a new round of creativity in the mobile space.
• Tons of built-in services out of the box. Location based services use GPS or cell tower
triangulation to let you customize the user experience depending on where they are. A
full-powered SQL database lets you harness the power of local storage for
occasionally connected computing and synchronization. Browser and Map views can
be embedded directly in your applications. All these built-in capabilities help to raise
the bar on functionality while loweringyour development costs.
• Automatic management of the application life cycle. Programs areisolated from each
other by multiple layers of security, which will provide a level of system stability not
seen before in smart phones.The end user will no longer have to worry about what
applications are active, or close some programs so that others can run. Android is
optimized for low-power, low-memory devices in a fundamental way that no previous
platform has attempted.
• High quality graphics and sound. Smooth, anti-aliased 2D vector graphics and
animation inspired by Flash is melded with 3D accelerated OpenGL graphics to
enable new kinds of games and business applications. Codecs for the most common
industry standard audio and video formats are built right in, including H.264 (AVC),
MP3, and AAC.
• Portability across a wide range of current and future hardware.All your programs are
written in Java and executed by Android’s Dalvik virtual machine so your code will
be portable across ARM,x86, and other architectures. Support for a variety of input
methods is included such as keyboard, touch, tilt, camera, voice, and trackball.
Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME (previously known as Java 2 Platform, Micro
Edition or J2ME) is a specification of a subset of the Java platform aimed at providing a
certified collection of Java APIs for the development of software for small, resource-
constrained devices. Though, do not confuse it with Google Android, even there are some
similarities:
• Eclipse plug-ins for J2ME and Android look very similar and interface very well
with their respective SDKs;
• Both J2ME and Android seem to share the same core Java APIs, such as java.util and
java.net. But their APIs for graphics, UIs, etc. are very dissimilar and
philosophies for developing applications are very different;
• Android seems to be more tightly integrated (up to even the OS services provided and
how they interact with the APIs), while J2ME is far more liberal in its
specifications for the developer and mobile device manufacturer.
A slower application development and performance – these are the main disadvantages
Java's J2ME have for today. J2ME apps are second-rate citizens in the phones. They do not
have an access to most of the low-level features, like call API, external connectivity (USB)
and other. There is no way to replace or extend built-in phone apps like contacts, calendar
and calls.
For instance, J2ME applications in Nokia devices with S60 work great for standard tasks. But
more advanced users find difficulties handling Wi-Fi access points with S60, because APIs
simply do not seem to be exposed to J2ME. A user may find difficulties synchronizing
Google Calendar with his device - nobody seems to have been able to figure out how to
make the J2ME calendar interfaces work correctly on S60. There are lots of problems
with Java applications on S60, even though S60 probably has one of the best Java
implementations.
Google has written its own virtual machine for Android most likely as a way to get around
licensing issues with Sun. However, Android does not include a complete and compliant Java
stack (neither JME nor JSE); only a subset and therefore it is technically not the Java
platform, it just looks a lot like it.
2.6 Advantages
• Open - Android allows you to access core mobile device functionality through
standard API calls.
• All applications are equal - Android does not differentiate between the phone's
basic and third-party applications -- even the dialer or home screen can be
replaced.
• Breaking down boundaries - Combine information from the web with data on the
phone -- such as contacts or geographic location -- to create new user experiences.
• Fast and easy development - The SDK contains what you need to build and run
Android applications, including a true device emulator and advanced debugging
tools.
2.7 Disadvantages
• Login - Platform doesn't run on an encrypted file system and has a vulnerable
log-in.
Android has been criticized for not being all open-source software despite what was
announced by Google. Parts of the SDK are proprietary and closed source, and some believe
this is so that Google can control the platform. Software installed by end-users must be
written in Java, and will not have access to lower level device APIs. This provides end-users
with less control over their phone's functionality than other free and open source phone
platforms, such as OpenMoko.
With all upcoming applications and mobile services Google Android is stepping into the next
level of Mobile Internet. Android participates in many of the successful open source projects.
That is, architect the solution for participation and the developers will not only come but will
play well together. This is notable contrast with Apple and other companies, where such
architecture of participation is clearly belated.
The first Android based official devices may well be launched sometime in the early half of
2009. Obviously, that's an age away when it comes to handset design, and Android may well
find itself competing against the forthcoming Nokia touch screen phones and maybe even the
iPhone 2.
4. Appendices
4.1 Appendix 1
Architecture Of Android 4
5. LIST OF REFERENCES:
1. http://www.android.com - Android Official Webpage
2. http://code.google.com/android/ - Official Android Google Code Webpage
3. http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/ - Open Handset Alliance Webpage
4. http://www.androidwiki.com – Android Wiki
5. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ - Official Google Blog
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(mobile_phone_platform)–Wikipedia
Information
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQLite
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)
10. http://www.itworld.com/google-android-dr-080213