ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM AND ITS

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted to the faculty of Engineering

Bharati Vidyapeeth University College of Engineering, Pune
In partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of

Bachelor of Engineering
In

Computer Engineering

Submitted By
MANISH CHAHAL
ROLL NO:-61
CLASS:-BE COMP II

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF:

PROF.MILIND BHOR

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING

BHARATI VIDYAPEETH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

2010 - 2011

1
 DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING
BHARATI VIDYAPEETH UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
ACADEMIC YEAR 2010-2011

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the seminar entitled ANDROID OPERATING
SYSTEM AND ITS APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT has been
successfully completed by MANISH CHAHAL, of class B.E.
Computer II, Roll No. 61, Department of Computer Engineering, Bharati
Vidyapeeth University, College of Engineering, under the guidance of Prof.
MILIND BHOR in a satisfactory manner as partial fulfillment of Bachelor of
Engineering Degree in Computer engineering during the academic year 2010–
2011.

Date: 4/10/2010

Prof. Milind Bhor Prof. Suhas H. Patil

(Seminar Guide) (H.O.D., Computer Science Dept.)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
2
Inspiration and guidance are invaluable in every aspect of life, especially in the
fields of academics, which I have received from my respected seminar guide
Prof. Milind Bhor, who at very discrete step in study of this seminar
contributed his valuable guidance to solve every problem that arose.
I would also like to thank the Head of Department of Computer Engineering,
Prof. S. H. Patil, who has given me this opportunity to present this seminar.
Lastly I would like to thank all the staff members and my classmates who
directly or indirectly helped me time to time.

Manish Chahal
B.E. Comp II
Roll No. 61

PAGE INDEX

3
Topic Page
no.
1. INTRODUCTION 8
1.1 THE BIRTH OF ANDROID 9
1.1.1 GOOGLE ACQUIRES ANDROID INC. 9
1.1.2 OPEN HANDSET ALLIANCE FOUNDED 9
1.1.3 HARDWARE 9
1.2 FEATURES 10
1.2.1 APPLICATION FRAMEWORK 10
1.2.2 DALVIK VIRTUAL MACHINE 10
1.2.3 INTEGRATED BROWSER 10
1.2.4 OPTIMIZED GRAPHICS 11
1.2.5 SQLITE 11
1.2.6 HANDSET LAYOUTS 11
1.2.7 DATA STORAGE 11
1.2.8 CONNECTIVITY 12
1.2.9 MESSAGING 12
1.2.10 WEB BROWSER 12
1.2.11 JAVA VIRTUAL MACHINE 12
1.2.12 MEDIA SUPPORT 12
1.2.13 ADDITIONAL HARDWARE 12
SUPPORT
1.2.14 DEVELOPMENT ENVIORNMENT 12

2. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF TOPIC

4
2.1OPERATION 12
2.1.1 ANDROID RUNTIME 12
2.1.2 LINUX KERNEL 12
2.1.4 LIBRARIES 12
2.1.5 ANDROID RUNTIME 13
2.1.6 APPLICATION FRAMEWORK 14
2.1.7 APPLICATION LAYER 15
2.2 DEVELOPING APPLICATIONS 15
2.2.1 APPLICATION BUILDING 16
BLOCK
2.2.2 ANDROID MANIFEST.XML 16
2.2.3 APPLICATION LIFECYCLE 17
2.2.4 APPLICATION FRAMEWORK 23
2.2.5 LIBRARY 24
2.3 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
2.3.1 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 24
KIT
2.4 SECURITY ISSUES 25
2.5 COMPARISON 26

3. ANDROID AND ITS APPLICATIONS 34

3.1 INTRODUCTION TO ANDROID DEV 34
3.2 BEST ANDROID APPLICATIONS 44
3.3 ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT 46
3.4 GOOGLE PROJECTS FOR ANDROID 51
3.5 GUIDE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION 52
DEVELOPMENT 54
3.6 SETTING UP AN ENVIORONMENT FOR ANDROID 60
APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

5
 3.7 ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPERIES

4. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE 62

5. REFERENCE 63

6. EXAMPLE CODES 64

Figure index

6
FIGURE PAGE NO..
1. FIGURE ABOUT ANDROID ARCHITECTURE 122.
FLOWCHART SHOWING THE LIFECYCL OF AN ACTIVITY

3.FIG 2.5 19

4.FIG 2.6 20

5.FIG 2.7 20

6.FIG 2.8 21

7.FIG 2.9 21

8.FIG 2.10 22

9.FIG 2.11 22

10.FIG 2.12 24

11.FIG 2.13 27

12 FIG 2.14 28

13 FIG 3 41

13 FIG 4 42

14 FIG 5 43

15 FIG 6 46

….

1. INTRODUCTION

7
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.

1.1. THE BIRTH OF ANDROID

1.1.1.Google Acquires Android Inc.

In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc., a small startup company based in Palo
Alto, CA. Android's co-founders who went to work at Google included Andy Rubin
(co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc),
Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (one of the first engineers at
WebTV). At the time, little was known about the functions of Android Inc. other than
they made software for mobile phones.

At Google, the team, led by Rubin, developed a Linux-based mobile device OS which
they marketed to handset makers and carriers on the premise of providing a flexible,
upgradeable system. It was reported that Google had already 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.

1.1.2. Open Handset Alliance Founded

On 5 November 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of several companies

which include Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel
and NVIDIA, was unveiled with the goal to develop open standards for mobile

8
 devices. Along with the formation of the Open Handset Alliance, the OHA also
unveiled their first product, Android, an open source mobile device platform based on
the Linux operating system.

1.1.3. 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.

1.2. FEATURES

1.2.1. 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.

1.2.2. Dalvik Virtual Machine

It is extremely low-memory based virtual machine, which was designed especially for
Android to run on embedded systems and work well in low power situations. It is

9
 also tuned to the CPU attributes. The Dalvik VM creates a special file format
(.DEX) that is created through build time post processing. Conversion between
Java classes and .DEX format is done by included “dx” tool.

1.2.3. 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.

1.2.4. 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.

1.2.5. 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.

1.2.6. 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

1.2.7. Data Storage

10
 SQLite is used for structured data storage .SQLite is a powerful and lightweight
relational database engine available to all applications.

1.2.8. Connectivity

Android supports a wide variety of connectivity technologies including GSM,

CDMA, Bluetooth, EDGE, EVDO, 3G and Wi-Fi.

1.2.9. Messaging

SMS, MMS, and XMPP are available forms of messaging including threaded text
messaging.

1.2.10. 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.

1.2.11. Java Virtual Machine

Software written in Java can be compiled into Dalvik bytecodes and executed in the
Dalvik virtual machine, which is a specialized VM implementation designed for
mobile device use, although not technically a standard Java Virtual Machine.

1.2.12. Media Support

Android will support advanced audio/video/still media formats such as MPEG-4,

H.264, MP3, and AAC, AMR, JPEG, PNG, GIF.

1.2.13. Additional Hardware Support

Android is fully capable of utilizing video/still cameras, touchscreens, GPS,

compasses, accelerometers, and accelerated 3D graphics.

1.2.14. Development Environment

11
 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.

2. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC

2.1. OPERATION
2.1.1. Android Runtime

12
 Android includes a set of core libraries that provides most of the functionality available
in the core libraries of the Java programming language.Every Android application runs
in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been
written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently.

The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is
optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes
compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format
by the included "dx" tool. The Dalvik VM relies on the Linux kernel for underlying
functionality such as threading and low-level memory management.

2.1.2. Linux Kernel

Android relies on Linux version 2.6 for core system services such as security, memory
management, process management, network stack, and driver model. The kernel also
acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and the rest of the software stack.

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.

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. Underlying all
applications is a set of services and systems.

ARCHITECTURE

The following diagram shows the major components of the Android operating system. Each
section is described in more detail below.

13
 Figure 2.1: Architecture of Android

2.1.3. Linux Kernel

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:

 WCDMA/HSUPA and EGPRS network support

 Bluetooth 1.2 and Wi-Fi support
 Digital audio support for mp3 and other formats

14
  Support for Linux and other third-party operating systems
 Java hardware acceleration and support for Java applications
 Qcamera up to 6.0 megapixels
 gpsOne – solution for GPS
 and lots of other.

2.1.4. Libraries
In the next level there are a set of native libraries written in C/C++, which are
responsible for stable performance of various components. For example, Surface
Manager is responsible for composing different drawing surfaces on the mobile
screen. It manages the access for different processes to compose 2D and 3D graphic
layers. OpenGL ES and SGL make a core of graphic libraries and are used
accordingly for 3D and 2D hardware acceleration. Moreover, it is possible to use 2D
and 3D graphics in the same application in Android. The media framework was
provided by PacketVideo, one of the members of OHA. It gives libraries for a
playback and recording support for all the major media and static image files.
FreeType libraries are used to render all the bitmap and vector fonts. For data storage,
Android uses SQLite. As mentioned before, it is extra light rational management
system, which locates a single file for all operations related to database. WebKit, the
same browser used by Apples’ Safari, was modified by Android in order to fit better
in a small size screens.

2.1.5. Android Runtime

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.

15
 Figure 2.2: Conversion from .java to .dex file

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.

2.1.6. Application Framework

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 parts of 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.

16
2.1.7. Application Layer

At the top of Android Architecture we have all the applications, which are used by the
final user. By installing different applications, the user can turn his mobile phone into
the unique, optimized and smart mobile phone. All applications are written using the
Java programming language.

2.2. DEVELOPING APPLICATIONS

2.2.1. Application Building Blocks

We can think of an Android application as a collection of components, of various

kinds. These components are for the most part quite loosely coupled, to the degree
where you can accurately describe them as a federation of components rather than a
single cohesive application.
Generally, these components all run in the same system process. It's possible (and
quite common) to create multiple threads within that process, and it's also possible to
create completely separate child processes if you need to. Such cases are uncommon,
because Android tries very hard to make processes transparent to your code.
Google provides three versions of SDK for Windows, for Mac OSX and one for
Linux. The developer can use Android plugin for Eclipse IDE or other IDEs such as
intelliJ. First step for Android developer is to decompose the application into the
components, supported by the platform. The major building blocks are these:
 Activity
 Intent Receiver
 Service
 Content Provider

Activity

User interface component, which corresponds to one screen at time. It means that
for the simple application like Address Book, the developer should have one

17
 activity for displaying contacts, another activity component for displaying more
detailed information of chosen name and etc.

Intent Receiver

Wakes up a predefined action through the external event. For example, for the
application like Email Inbox, the developer should have intent receiver and
register his code through XML to wake up an alarm notification, when the user
receives email.

Service

A task, which is done in the background. It means that the user can start an
application from the activity window and keep the service work, while browsing
other applications. For instance, he can browse Google Maps application while
holding a call or listening music while browsing other applications.

Content Provider

A component,which allows sharing some of the data with other processes and
applications. It is the best way to communicate the applications between each
other.Android will ship with a set of core applications including an email client,
SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are
written using the Java programming language.

2.2.2. AndroidManifest.xml

The AndroidManifest.xml file is the control file that tells the system what to do with
all the top-level components (specifically activities, services, intent receivers, and
content providers described below) you've created. For instance, this is the "glue" that
actually specifies which Intents your Activities receive.

A developer should predefine and list all components, which he wants to use in the
specific AndroidManifest.xml file. It is a required file for all the applications and is

18
 located in the root folder. It is possible to specify all global values for the package, all
the components and its classes used, intent filters, which describe where and when the
certain activity should start, permissions and instrumentation like security control
and testing.

Here is an example of AndroidManifest.xml file:

1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2. <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
3. package="dk.mdev.android.hello">
4. <application android:icon="@drawable/icon">
5. <activity class=".HelloAndroid" android:label="@string/app_name">
6. <intent-filter>
7. <action android:value="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
8. <category android:value="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
9. </intent-filter>
10. </activity>
11. </application>
12. </manifest>
The line 2 is a namespace declaration, which makes a standard Android
attributes available for that application. In the line 4 there is a single <application>
element, where the developer specifies all application level components and its
properties used by the package. Activity class in the line 5 represents the initial
screen the user sees and it may have one or more <intent-filter> elements to describe
the actions that activity supports.

2.2.3. Application Lifecycle

In Android, every application runs in its own process, which gives better performance
in security, protected memory and other benefits. Therefore, Android is responsible to
run and shut down correctly these processes when it is needed.

It is important that application developers understand how different application

components (in particular Activity, Service, and BroadcastReceiver) impact the

19
lifetime of the application's process. Not using these components correctly can result
in the system killing the application's process while it is doing important work.

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. These process types are (in order of
importance).
1. A foreground process is one that is required for what the user is currently doing.
Various application components can cause its containing process to be considered
foreground in different ways. A process is considered to be in the foreground if
any of the following conditions hold:
i. It is running an Activity at the top of the screen that the user is
interacting with (its onResume() method has been called).
ii. It has a BroadcastReceiver that is currently running (its
BroadcastReceiver.onReceive() method is executing).
iii. It has a Service that is currently executing code in one of its callbacks
(Service.onCreate(), Service.onStart(), or Service.onDestroy()).
There will only ever be a few such processes in the system, and these will only be
killed as a last resort if memory is so low that not even these processes can
continue to run. Generally, at this point, the device has reached a memory paging
state, so this action is required in order to keep the user interface responsive.
2. 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.
3. 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.

20
4. 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.
5. 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

21
 Figure 2.3 : Flowchart Showing The Lifecycle Of An Activity

In the following example we will display a process flow from the Android System point of
View to get a clear idea how the applications behave. Let assume the

22
 Figure 2.4

Possible scenario: A user talks to his friend via mobile phone and he is asked to browse the
internet (a talk is hold for a moment), find a picture of him in his Picasa Album, send it via
Email back to his friend and resume a talk.

In this situation, there are 4 different applications and 4 different processes running, but from
the user point of view none of them are important, as Android manages CPU work and
memory usage by itself. It means the user can travel through the applications forward and
back without thinking about how much memory is left or which processes are run at the time.
Firstly, as the user is talking to his friend, a specific Talk application is opened, which
contains the activity manager. In the following stack we can see two processes running, the
main system process and Talk application process. Moreover, before going to Web Browser
application, the system saves a Talk state T in order to remember that process:

Figure 2.5

At this point, as a user holds a talk and opens a web browser, the system creates a new
process and new web browser activity is launched in it. Again, the state of the last activity is
saved (W):

23
Figure 2.6

After that, the user browses the internet, finds his picture in Picasa album and saves it to
particular folder. He does not close a web browser, instead he opens a folder to find saved
picture. The folder activity is launched in particular process:

Figure 2.7

At this point, the user finds his saved picture in the folder and he creates a request to open an
Email application. The last state F is saved. Now assume that the mobile phone is out of the
memory and there is no room to create a new process for Email application. Therefore,
Android looks to kill a process. It can not destroy Folder process, as it was used previously
and could be reused again, so it kills Web Browser process as it is not useful anymore and
locates a new Email process instead:

Figure 2.8

24
The user opens Email application and sends a picture to his friend via email. Now he wants to
go back to the Talk application and to resume a talk to his friend. Because of the previously
saved states, this work is done fast and easily. In this example, Email application is popped
out and the user sees a previous Folder application:

Figure 2.9

Next, the user goes back to Web Browser application. Unfortunately, web browser process
was killed previously so the system has to kill another process (in our case it is Email
application process, which is not used anymore) in order to locate Web Browser process and
manage the stack memory:

Figure 2.10

25
and finally:

Figure 2.11

Now the user comes back to the Talk application and resumes his talk with his friend.
Because of the saved states, going back procedure is fast and useful, because it remembers
previous activities and its views.
This example shows, that it does not matter how many applications and processes are active
or how much available memory is left, Android it manages fast and without a user
interaction.

2.2.4. Application Framework

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.

Underlying all applications is a set of services and systems, including:

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
26
 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. A Notification Manager that enables all applications to display custom alerts in

the status bar

5. An Activity Manager that manages the life cycle of applications and provides a
common navigation backstack.

2.2.5. Library

 Android includes a set of C/C++ libraries used by various components of

the Android system. These capabilities are exposed to developers through
the Android application framework. Some of the core libraries are listed
below:

 System C library - a BSD-derived implementation of the standard C

system library (libc), tuned for embedded Linux-based devices

 Media Libraries - based on PacketVideo's OpenCORE; the libraries

support playback and recording of many popular audio and video formats,
as well as static image files, including MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR,
JPG, and PNG

 Surface Manager - manages access to the display subsystem and

seamlessly composites 2D and 3D graphic layers from multiple
applications.

 LibWebCore - a modern web browser engine which powers both the

Android browser and an embeddable web view

 SGL - the underlying 2D graphics engine

 3D libraries - an implementation based on OpenGL ES 1.0 APIs; the

libraries use either hardware 3D acceleration (where available) or the
included, highly optimized 3D software rasterizer

 FreeType - bitmap and vector font rendering

27
  SQLite - a powerful and lightweight relational database engine available to
all applications.

2.3. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

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.

2.3.1. Software Development kit

It includes development and debugging tools, a set of libraries, a device emulator,

documentation, sample projects, tutorials, and FAQs. Requirements also include Java
Development Kit, Apache Ant, and Python 2.2 or later. The only officially supported
integrated development environment (IDE) is Eclipse 3.2 or later, through the
Android Development Tools Plugin, but programmers can use command line tools to
create, build and debug Android applications.

Partial Listing of Open Handset Alliance Participants

Technology Vendors

Figure 2.12

28
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. Security Shield –
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.

2.4. COMPARISON

2.4.1. Speculations With Cellular Carriers

29
 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.

In fact, why pay for cellular minutes at all when a user can download Skype, Gtalk or
other client and just use his data plan? OS’s such as Android threaten carriers with a
loss of control over the applications on the phones on their network and they may find
themselves becoming nothing more than wireless Internet service providers, forced to
compete on price and bandwidth.

Another aspect is hardware cost: Google Android owns 10 percent of the total cost of
a phone, which combined with falling hardware prices could eventually result a fertile
unlocked handset market. In conclusion, Google has a better start in this race than any
company had before to bring new rules to the mobile market with all carriers, mobile
devices and its customers.

2.4.2. 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.

30
 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 only create better, cheaper handsets and more advanced applications.

2.4.3. Market Research

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.

31
 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.

2.4.4. Mobile Ads

Jaiku- an activity stream and sharing service that works from the Web and mobile
phones was bought by Google as important investment into the mobile advertisement.
People wondered why Google preferred the micro-blogging service to Twitter, which
is much more popular nowadays.

The answer lies in Jaiku’s unique ability to combine micro-blogging with user’s
location. An integral part of the service is a Jaiku client application for Symbian S60
platform mobile phones, which should come to Android platform as well. The client
uses location APIs within device to get the handset and the users’ location based on
nearby cellular network towers.

32
 Though the location is not very precise, the mobile phone is able to broadcast it
automatically. At that point the text can be connected to users’ location and create a
list of preferences for each place the user frequently visits.

Using such a technology, it is simple to track down a user via phone’s IP address,
whenever he comes into McDonald or is sitting in the airport. Google is not a million
miles away from being able to push advanced advertising to individuals based on their
profile, their location and their availability. They already offer regional and local
targeting for ads for desktop users, but this could be much more useful for a mobile
phone. And if the ads are truly relevant, interesting and unobtrusive, people might
actually start to like them.

2.4.5. Mobile Services

Adding to its fast growing suite of mobile applications and services, Google has
applied for a patent for a mobile payments service that would allow users to make
payments at retail shops using their mobile phones. The Text Message Payment patent
describes a system where Google offers mobile focused payments called GPay. This
describes a system where a SMS message would be sent containing a payment
amount and other information. That payment amount would then be validated, debited
from the user's account, and communicated from server to server. Payment
confirmation that had been received would also simultaneously be sent to the relevant
party, as illustrated in the diagram below:

33
 Figure 2.14 : Figure describes Google’s mobile focused payments called GPay

Described as "a computer-implemented method of effectuating an electronic on-line

payment," the system mentioned in the patent application is similar to existing mobile
payment services.

These services like mobile version of PayPal have been available for some time but
have had little success bursting with merchants and with customers. The main
difference between existing mobile payment systems and GPay is, of course, that
GPay is created by Google and will be easily adopted by Android Platform. The more
issues regarding Gpay are yet to be released.

2.4.6. What makes Android special?

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:

34
 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. Parts

of one application can be used in another in ways not originally
envisioned 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 lowering your development
costs.

 Automatic management of the application life cycle. Programs are

isolated 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.

35
  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. User
interfaces can be customized for any screen resolution and orientation.
Android is a fresh take on the way mobile applications interact with
users, along with the technical underpinnings to make it possible. But
the best part of Android is the software that you are going to write for
it. This book will help you get off to a great start.

2.4.7. Android And Java ME

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.

36
 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.

Android fills a void in Java Mobile applications by providing API to build richer
applications - more useful for Smart Phones which contain the ability to provide these
types of functionalities. If J2ME filled every void, Android as an API wouldn't be
needed (though Android as an OS could still fill a void).

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.

2.4.8. Openness Of The Platform

The open source school of thought implies that differentiation and competitive
advantage come from innovation on top of the underlying platform rather than the
platform itself. The robustness and scalability of the platform is secured by the
community’s stewardship, and open access to a central repository of updated code.
Beyond this, a strong third-party development environment and software development
kit (SDK) are critical to attracting innovation.

“Open” is an invariably subjective term. Symbian and Microsoft can claim a degree of
openness for their mobile platforms, for example, but ultimate control of API access
and source code remains with a single entity. On the contrary, as Google has pointed
out, there’s nothing keeping any of the alliance members from using Android to build
a Yahoo! Go phone.

Motorola has had some success delivering high-volume Linux-based devices such as
the Ming and RAZR II to market. But mobile Linux initiatives have failed to scale on

37
 the basis of attractiveness to third-party developers; it’s been supply-push with the
development focus in Java ME or other application framework components.

Importantly, Android includes almost the entirety of the applications-related software

stack, less key technical pieces such as telephony protocol stacks, which are left to
silicon vendors. Android bundles critical components such as a Linux kernel from
Wind River, various optimized graphics engines, codecs, notification software, a
“clean room” JVM implementation, and the KHTML open source browser. The latter
forms the basis of Apple’s Safari and Nokia’s S60 offerings.

2.4.9. 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.

2.4.10. Disadvantages

 Security - Making source code available to everyone inevitably invites the

attention of black hat hackers.

 Open Source - A disadvantage of open-source development is that anyone can

scrutinize the source code to find vulnerabilities and write exploits.

 gin - Platform doesn't run on an encrypted file system and has a vulnerable log-
in.

38
  Incompetence - Google’s dependence on hardware and carrier partners puts the
final product out of their control.

ANDROID AND ITS APPLICATION

EVELOPMENT

39
3.Introduction to Android development

3.1INTRODUCTION

The BlackBerry and iPhone, which have appealing and high-volume mobile platforms, are
addressing opposite ends of a spectrum. The BlackBerry is rock-solid for the enterprise
business user. For a consumer device, it's hard to compete with the iPhone for ease of use and
the "cool factor." Android, a young and yet-unproven platform, has the potential to play at
both ends of the mobile-phone spectrum and perhaps even bridge the gulf between work and
play.

Today, many network-based or network-capable appliances run a flavor of the Linux kernel.
It's a solid platform: cost-effective to deploy and support and readily accepted as a good
design approach for deployment. The UI for such devices is often HTML-based and viewable
with a PC or Mac browser. But not every appliance needs to be controlled by a general
computing device. Consider a conventional appliance, such as a stove, microwave or bread
maker. What if your household appliances were controlled by Android and boasted a color
touch screen? With an Android UI on the stove-top, the author might even be able to cook
something.

In this article, learn about the Android platform and how it can be used for mobile and
nonmobile applications. Install the Android SDK and build a simple application.

3.1.2 The Android platform

With Android's breadth of capabilities, it would be easy to confuse it with a desktop

operating system. Android is a layered environment built upon a foundation of the Linux
kernel, and it includes rich functions. The UI subsystem includes:

40
  Windows
 Views
 Widgets for displaying common elements such as edit boxes, lists, and drop-down
lists

Android includes an embeddable browser built upon WebKit, the same open source browser
engine powering the iPhone's Mobile Safari browser.

Android boasts a healthy array of connectivity options, including WiFi, Bluetooth, and
wireless data over a cellular connection (for example, GPRS, EDGE, and 3G). A popular
technique in Android applications is to link to Google Maps to display an address directly
within an application. Support for location-based services (such as GPS) and accelerometers
is also available in the Android software stack, though not all Android devices are equipped
with the required hardware. There is also camera support.

Historically, two areas where mobile applications have struggled to keep pace with their
desktop counterparts are graphics/media, and data storage methods. Android addresses the
graphics challenge with built-in support for 2-D and 3-D graphics, including the OpenGL
library. The data-storage burden is eased because the Android platform includes the popular
open source SQLite database. Figure 1 shows a simplified view of the Android software
layers.

3.1.3 Required tools

The easiest way to start developing Android applications is to download the Android SDK
and the Eclipse IDE . Android development can take place on Microsoft® Windows®, Mac
OS X, or Linux.

This article assumes you are using the Eclipse IDE and the Android Developer Tools plug-in
for Eclipse. Android applications are written in the Java language, but compiled and executed
in the Dalvik VM (a non-Java virtual machine). Coding in the Java language within Eclipse is
very intuitive; Eclipse provides a rich Java environment, including context-sensitive help and
code suggestion hints. Once your Java code is compiled cleanly, the Android Developer

41
Tools make sure the application is packaged properly, including the AndroidManifest.xml
file.

It's possible to develop Android applications without Eclipse and the Android Developer
Tools plug-in, but you would need to know your way around the Android SDK.

The Android SDK is distributed as a ZIP file that unpacks to a directory on your hard drive.
Since there have been several SDK updates, it is recommended that you keep your
development environment well organized so you can easily switch between SDK
installations. The SDK includes:

ANDROID.JAR
Java archive file containing all of the Android SDK classes necessary to build your
application.
DOCUMENTION.HTML AND DOCS DIRECTORY
The SDK documentation is provided locally and on the Web. It's largely in the form
of JavaDocs, making it easy to navigate the many packages in the SDK. The
documentation also includes a high-level Development Guide and links to the broader
Android community.
SAMPLES DIRECTORY
The samples subdirectory contains full source code for a variety of applications,
including ApiDemo, which exercises many APIs. The sample application is a great
place to explore when starting Android application development.
TOOLS DIRECTORY
Contains all of the command-line tools to build Android applications. The most
commonly employed and useful tool is the adb utility (Android Debug Bridge).
USB_DRIVER
Directory containing the necessary drivers to connect the development environment to
an Android-enabled device, such as the G1 or the Android Dev 1 unlocked
development phone. These files are only required for developers using the Windows
platform.

Android applications may be run on a real device or on the Android Emulator, which ships
with the Android SDK. Figure 3 shows the Android Emulator's home screen.

42
Figure 3. Android Emulator

43
Android Debug Bridge

The adb utility supports several optional command-line arguments that provide powerful
features, such as copying files to and from the device. The shell command-line argument lets
you connect to the phone itself and issue rudimentary shell commands. Figure 4 shows the
adb shell command against a real device connected to a Windows laptop with a USB cable.

44
Figure 4. Using the adb shell command

Within this shell environment, you can:

 Display the network configuration that shows multiple network connections. Note the
multiple network connections:
o lo is the local or loopback connection.
o tiwlan0 is the WiFi connection with an address provisioned by a local DHCP
server.
 Display the contents of the PATH environment variable.
 Execute the su command to become the super-user.

45
  Change the directory to /data/app, where user applications are stored.
 Do a directory listing where you see a single application. Android application files are
actually archive files that are viewable with WinZip or equivalent. The extension is
apk.
 Issue a ping command to see if Google.com is available.

From this same command-prompt environment, you can also interact with SQLite databases,
start programs, and many other system-level tasks. This is fairly remarkable function,
considering you're connected to a telephone.

3.1.4 CODING A BASIC APPLICATION

This section provides a whirlwind tour of building an Android application. The example
application is about as simple as you can imagine: a modified "Hello Android" application.
You'll add a minor modification to make the screen background color all white so you can
use the phone as a flashlight. Not very original, but it will be useful as an example..

To create an application in Eclipse, select File > New > Android project, which starts the
New Android Project wizard.

46
Figure 5. New Android project wizard

Next, you create a simple application with a single activity, along with a UI layout stored in
main.xml. The layout contains a text element you're going to modify to say Android
FlashLight. The simple layout is shown below.

47
Listing 1. Flashlight layout

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:background="@color/all_white">
<TextView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@string/hello" android:textColor="@color/all_black"
android:gravity="center_horizontal"/>
</LinearLayout>

Create a couple of color resources in strings.xml.

Listing 2. Color in strings.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="hello">Android FlashLight</string>
<string name="app_name">FlashLight</string>
<color name="all_white">#FFFFFF</color>
<color name="all_black">#000000</color>
</resources>

The main screen layout has a background color defined as all_white. In the strings.xml file,
you see that all_white is defined as an RGB triplet value of #FFFFFF, or all white.

The layout contains a single TextView, which is really just a piece of static text; it is not
editable. The text is set to be black and is centered horizontally with the gravity attribute.

The application has a Java source file called FlashLight.java, as shown below.

48
Listing 3. Flashlight.java

package com.msi.flashlight;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
public class FlashLight extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
}
}

The code is boiler-plate directly from the New Project wizard:

 It is part of a Java package called com.msi.flashlight.

 It has two imports:
o One for the activity class
o One for the bundle class
 When this activity is initiated, the onCreate method is invoked, passing in a
savedInstanceState. Don't be concerned with this bundle for our purposes; it is used when
an activity is suspended and then resumed.
 The onCreate method is an override of the activity class method of the same name. It
calls the super class's onCreate method.
 A call to setContentView() associates the UI layout defined in the file main.xml.
Anything in main.xml and strings.xml gets automatically mapped to constants defined
in the R.java source file. Never edit this file directly, as it is changed upon every
build.

Running the application presents a white screen with black text.

49
Figure 6. White screen of flashlight

50
The AndroidManifest.xml file setup for the FlashLight application is shown below.

Listing 4. AndroidManifest.xml for FlashLight

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

51
 package="com.msi.flashlight"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0.0">
<application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">
<activity android:name=".FlashLight"
android:label="@string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>

52
3.2 BEST ANDROID APPS 2010
If you, like me, have come to love and depend on your android based phones, you must have
had a look at some some of the best android applications for your phone. It's very important
to know which are best android apps for your phone otherwise you would be just
downloading plenty of applications and filling up your phone. Blackberry mobile phones also
support the android operating system.

3.2.1 Shopsavvy: Shopsavvy was first publicized heavily as the first mobile's TV ad.
Shopsavvy allows you to scan the bar code of any product with the help of your camera and
you can also check the prices local and online so that you can get the best deal. You can also
check out product reviews and set the application on an alert mode to let you know when the
price of that product falls down. This great application is only available on android .

3.2.2 BeebPlayer: In recent times iplayer is one of the most popular on demand video
player in the market. But you can't use it on your android phone, so let's try out the
beebplayer. Beebpalyer provides support for two stream qualities wi-fi and 3G. It also plays
live streams of TV and radio. Beebplayer is only available to download android market and is
one of the best android apps for HTC Hero. If you own a blackberry, then have a look at
some blackberry apps to add some new cool features to make your phone look cool.

53
3.2.3 Locale: Truly one of the best android apps that I love. Locale changes the phone
settings according to the location of your phone. It always seems a little confusing at first but
once you start using it you will be comfortable with it. Let's take an example, you can set a
reminder for charging as soon as your phone battery goes low or you can also set the phone to
go on silent mode as soon as you enter a cinema hall.

3.2.4 Shazam: It is a wonderful apps for android systems. It's a favorite pick for all android
users in 2010. But instead of paying premium rates for shazam it is now available free of
charge. Shazam is a music tagging system, that helps you identify all the details of the song
like names of artists, albums etc. Shazam is also one of the best android apps for your droid
phone.

3.2.5Best Android Games

Here is a list of free mobile games which are currently available on the android platform.

 Bonsai Blast
 Abduction
 Battleship
 Robot Defense
 Cestos

3.2.6Best Android Widgets

Android has come up with some really cool and nice widgets and they are getting popular
with people all around. I have listed the top three.

3.2.7Android Agenda Widget: Agenda is a fun android widget and this widget displays
important events from your corporate calender. Now available in the android market it helps
you to pull and remind you of the meeting information.

3.2.8News and Weather Widget: This is a free widget and it's suited for everyone who
is interested or follows news and someone who also requires detailed weather information.

3.2.9Stock Facebook Widget: Stock facebook is also a very popular android widget

54
and is freely available in the android market. This widget works for both HTC hero and droid.

So these were some of the best android apps available in the market. There are some best
cydia apps which support your cydia smart phone and makes it handy. If you know some
more cool applications for android phones do revert to me.

3.3ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Ever since the release date of Google Android Operating System, Google Android
applications market has been growing day by day. From the time when this operating system
has taken the world of mobile application development by storm, it has been achieving
popularity over mobile application development. With these trends, it has been competing
very well in the mobile technology world and has seen a gradual increase in the number of its
smart phone users.

Mobile’s growth curve is strong and mobile is becoming quite a phenomenon on the Internet.
It is true that number of Android applications is fewer in comparison to iPhone, BlackBerry
and Symbian; but with time, use of Android Apps has increased.

Now Android Operating System with its applications is getting a strong hold to rule the
smartphone market. In recent days we have seen the phenomenal growth of Android Platform
i.e. 15 points jump in just 3 months. No other hand phone device has shown such tremendous
growth within such a short span.

Google Android is an open source platform. It has become popular among Android
application developers because they don't have to pay any license fee for its development.
Similarly there is no restriction imposed by its company like you find in case of iPhone and
other operating systems. There are no problems of lock or unlock and jailbreak etc.

Android has a huge developer community. Being an open source development, you can take
benefits from this big community. For any kind of problem during development stage
Android developers can take help of the community to solve that problem including
debugging of Android apps.
55
As Android is based on Linux core, it exhibits rock solid stability. It never crashes easily. It
also shows security against viruses. Android Apps developed on this platform exhibit same
characteristics and hence, they are more stable ones.

Android apps are not sold cheap in the market. So it is good opportunity for the third party
Android Application development companies. These companies may have good return over
their investment on Application developments.

3.3.1MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT ON

ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Android, Google's mobile operating system is fast gaining in popularity in a smartphone

market that could be shaping up as a two-platform contest between the iPhone and Android.
If Android maintains, or as it appears, ramps up its expansion, it will propel the open-source
technology platform into a powerful and attractive ecosystem that allows developers create
low-cost apps the masses can afford.

3.3.1ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Advanced Media Productions offers expertise in mobile software application architecture and
development, user experience and design, project management, and application deployment.
This allows us to offer our clients top-quality application development services for the
Android operating system with Java and Simple programming language. Our team of skilled
Android software developers can help you create the specific, customized applications you
need to meet your business goals.

3.3.2ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

56
the Android platform is very similar to any regular software development project and
comprises such stages as requirements gathering, design, prototyping, development of
functional releases, quality control and product life cycle management.

3.3.3ADVANCED MEDIA PRODUCTIONS PROVIDES A COMPLETE

AND INTEGRATED ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
SERVICES

To provide businesses and organizations with an opportunity to use mobile business

applications and games to boost brand visibility, drive engagement and generate web site
traffic, leads and sales, Advanced Media Productions offers mobile application development
services for the development of applications that run natively on a smartphone with the
Android operating system. Our mobile team consists of experts in mobile application
development and testing, that can develop high quality Android software programming
solutions for clients world-wide.

Whether you are a company taking its first steps into the mobile and Android space or a large
wireless carrier or handset manufacturer of mobile devices, we transform your ideas into
robust and easy-to-use Android applications.

3.3.4MOBILE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Our application development process begins with gathering of the customers' goal, business
objectives and strategy to ensure the longterm success of the application from concept
evaluation to development and product life cycle management. Our development team has
the experience to identify and exploit the opportunities that add value to the mobile
application and your business and can assist you with difficult implementation decisions and
tradeoffs between cost, functionality and cool features.

Whatever the need, Advanced Media Productions works with you to bring our application
development, mobile experience and a technology-agnostic approach - ensuring you are
getting the right mobile experience for you and your customers.

process for the development of Android applications using the Android SDK. Our
development method for the Android covers the entire process from design, development to

57
deployment of the application to the Android Marketplace and product life cycle
management. Not only has our development team extensive experience with development of
high performance mobile applications, our team also has significant expertise in the areas of
user experience design and usability.

Our Android application development services include:

 Android mobile applications and game development

 Web-based applications development for mobile devices
 Android multimedia mobile solutions development
 Migration of existing applications to the Android platform

3.3.5ANDROID MOBILE APPLICATION BENEFITS

Android mobile applications offer the following benefits:

 Extended functionality - Mobile applications can provide application functionality or

utility that is not natively available on the Android smartphone or is significantly
better than what currently exists
 Remote access - Mobile applications can extend business software functionality for
field employees and give their employees the opportunity to access information easily
from anywhere where they have access to the Internet
 Brand visibility - Mobile Android applications offer deep aligned and integrated
brand experiences any time they are used
 Monetization - Mobile Android applications allows developers and publishers to
monetize the apps by serving text, image and rich media ads on CMP basis

3.3.6Android Smartphones are all over Hong Kong and

even on Mini-Buses
September 24th,2010

58
Yesterday night I was walking around Kowloon site of Hong Kong and saw a couple of so
called “Mini Buses” that were showing hundreds of Android smartphones on an ad that was
obviously promoting just Android. Check it out:

Zoomed in a bit further, you can see that there are loads of little droids on the banner.
Though, I don’t quite understand what the app is talking about (my Cantonese / Chinese
reading is nearly not existing) I reckon that ad is there to just advertise for Android.

With a smartphone penetration of 58% (if I remember correctly), every second mobile in
Hong Kong is a smartphone. While the iPhone is still the main smartphone used for personal
and the BlackBerry for business life, Android phones are getting more and more popular –
like everywhere in the world. Most of those new Android phones are built in Asia anyway
and therefore, they hit Hong Kong very early after being released publicly.

If you have a nice Android picture in real life, let me know. I might put it up as well

59
3.3.7 DANGER, BLACKBERRY, AN ANDROID WANTS

TO EAT YOU!

Google’s Android mobile operating system is gaining momentum in the

enterprise smartphone market against the BlackBerry OS from rival
Research in Motion, according to a recent ChangeWave survey.[1] Based
on Android’s impressive security and multitasking features, we think it
will continue to be a formidable competitor going forward.

That’s bad news for RIM investors. We see a potential 10% downside to
the $72 Trefis stock price estimate for RIM if its share of the enterprise
market continues to decline.

MOBILE ENTERPRISE FORECAST

RIM’s share of the enterprise smartphone market fell from 76% in

November 2008 to 66% in August 2010, according to ChangeWave.[2]
Android’s enterprise share rose from 10% to 16% during the same period.

On the other hand, RIM’s share of the global mobile phone market should
reach 3.7% this year, up from 2.7% in 2009. We expect this growth to
continue in coming years, reaching 8% by the end of Trefis forecast
period. According to Gartner, Android-based handsets accounted for 3.9%
of the global mobile phone market last year. Gartner expects Android to
power 30% of all mobile phones sold in 2014.

ANDROID VS. BLACKBERRY

60
Android is based on the open-source Linux operating system, which has an
excellent record of resisting malware attacks. Android and BlackBerry
both offer excellent multitasking capacity compared to Apple’s iOS.
However, Android is far ahead of RIM in the app sweepstakes, with about
70,000 apps in its apps store compared to RIM’s 10,000

3.4GOOGLE PROJECTS FOR ANDROID

 Home
 Blog
 Forum

Thank you to all participants in Google's Android Developer Challenge! Many excellent apps
were submitted and you can find most of them now on Android Market. Congratulations to
all of the winners!

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system,
middleware, and key applications. The Android SDK provides the tools and libraries
necessary to begin developing applications that run on Android-powered devices.

This site provides information about Google projects based on the Android platform, such as
external libraries that extend the platform, hosted services and APIs, and more. Everything on
this site is provided by Google for the benefit of Android developers. If you are interested in
developing applications for Android devices, please visit the Android

3.4.1GOOGLE APIS ADD-ON

61
The Google APIs add-on extends your Android SDK to give your applications access to
Google libraries such as Maps. Using the Maps library, you can quickly add powerful
mapping capabilities to your Android applications.

3.4.2ANDROID CLOUD TO DEVICE MESSAGING

Android Cloud to Device Messaging is a service that allows you to send lightweight
messages from your application server to an Android application on a device. You can use
the service to tell the application.

3.5GUIDE FOR ANDROID APPLICATION

DEVELOPMENT
This article provides the basic information about android application development. What
things must be known to every android developer like Android SDK, tools, plugins and
version of Android Operating System
Today Google is a giant search engine. On internet, Google has multiple products like Google
reader, Google buzz, Gmail, Google books and many more. In addition, it has popular
browser called Google chrome.

Android is very popular word today on internet and in real world. However, what is Android?
When you see the title of this article then you are confusing. If you don’t know about
Android then you waste your time to read this article. However, don’t worry. Android is an
operating system like Window but not for computers it’s for Mobile devices like cellular
phones, tablet computers and notebooks. Android Inc developed it but then after Google
Purchased It.

62
Android operating system software consists java applications and running on java based
fretworks which contains top java libraries. So people who familiar with java and java
application development easily create any android application. Android Operating System
consists five important parts, which are application, application framework, libraries, android
run time, and Linux kernel.

There many version for released for Android OS system which are Android 1.1, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0,
2.0, 2.1. Current version is 2.1 and 2.2 is yet not released. If you want to create any android
applications then you must have Android SDK, Eclipse, and ADT Plug in.

The Android SDK provides you various tools, and API, which are necessary for developing
any Android application on Android platform using Java programming language. If you
install Android SDK on your computer then your system must run on Windows XP (32-bit)
or Vista (32- or 64-bit) and Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later (x86 only) operating system. Latest
Version of SDK is 2.1. Also you have some supported development environment like Eclipse
IDE, Eclipse JDT plugin, JDK 5 or JDK 6 or Android Development Tools plugin (ADT
PlugIn).

In android application development, the user interface (UI) is build using View and
ViewGroup objects. In addition, Android SDK contains some tools for debug your
application like Android Debug Bridge (ADB), Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS),
Traceview, logcat, and Eclipse ADT plugin.

After developed any application then main part is testing. If you developed your application,
using Eclipse and ADT then you can test your application within an emulator or the device
you on which you run your application Android SDK has various custom tools, which are
helpful android developers to create any android application such as

 Android Development Tools Plugin

 Android Emulator
 Android Virtual Devices (AVDs)
 Hierarchy Viewer
 layoutopt
 Draw 9-patch
63
  Dalvik Debug Monitor Service (ddms)
 Android Debug Bridge (adb)
 Android Asset Packaging Tool (aapt)
 Android Interface Description Language (aidl)
 sqlite3
 Traceview
 mksdcard
 dx
 UI/Application Exerciser Monkey
 android
 zipalign

Okie finally your application developed successfully now the final step is Application
installation on particular devices. If you want to move your application on external devices
then you must declare "android:install Location" manifest attribute within your application. If
you application is big size means in megabytes then its depend upon you that you install your
application in internal devices or in external device. Finally, I hope you got the basic idea for
Android application development .

64
3.6 SETTING UP AN ENVIRONMENT FOR ANDROID
DEVELOPMENT / TESTING

 Download Android SDK from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

 Unzip to a folder of your choice.  We'll refer to this folder as SDK_HOME
 Launch the Android SDK and AVD manager (On windows:
SDK_HOME\Tools\android.bat, On Mac/Linux:  SDK_HOME/Tools/android )
 Install at least on Android Package:
o Click on "Available Packages"
o Expand the tree on the right.
o Select a package, e.g. SDK Android 2.1, Android API7, revision 2

65
o Click "Install"

o If you get an "HTTP SSL error" as in the following picture,

66
 Then go to "Settings" and check the option "force https://... sources to be fetched using http://..."

o Then go back to "Available Packages" as above

 Create an AVD ("Android Virtual Device" as follows:

o Click on "Virtual Devices"
o Click "New"

67
o Select (1) Device Name, (2) Target (the package you downloaded), (3) Memory
card size.
o If you want to use the camera in your applications, add Camera support by (4)
clicking "New" in the hardware area,  (5) selecting camera support in the drop
down menu and (6) Clicking "OK"

68
 "
o Change "Camera Support" option to "true" (7) [If you added camera support]

69
o Click "Create AVD" (8)

70
 Launch the emulator by (A) selecting the virtual device you've created, (B) Clicking "Start ..." and (C) Clicking
launch int the pop-up dialog that shows up.

71
 Install Sun's JDK:
o On Windows, dowload the JDK from
http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp
o On Ubuntu:  sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
o On Mac:  JDK is usually pre-instaled

72
3.7 ANDROID APPLICATION DEVELOPER – A WHOLE NEW
WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES

Google’s Android operating system has taken the world of mobile application development
by storm, for quite some time now. Granted, there are still less number of apps available for
the platform compared to the other platforms like iPhone, Blackberry and Symbian but this is
for sure that Google’s Android has already started spreading its tendrils to other handsets. On
its recent earnings call, T-Mobile announced that it has sold its one millionth G1 phone based
on the Android open-source operating system, meaning it took Google just six months to do
this. This by all means is an impressive feat considering the incredible anticipation and fervor
for the iPhone.

Android apps cost a good amount each, and hence can be used to rake in a steady stream of
income over time. Here are the advantages that I foresee for building an Android application
vis a vis other platforms:

1. Android OS Roils SmartPhone Market: Android Mobile Operating system was introduced
a year back and could hardly give a competition to Apple iPhone but with the recent slew of

73
new Android based devices the growth has been phenomenal with a phenomenal 15 point
jump in just 3 months.

2. Huge developer community support: The Android platform is open to all, and as such there
is a dedicated community of developers actively working on this platform. If there are any
troubles that the developers run into during the development phase, there will always be help
at hand. Besides, if there are any bugs, community members will also offer help during
testing phase. This will make sure that your apps are stable and bug free when those are
released.

3. Ease of Development and Porting: By default, Android is configured to auto-scale

everything in most cases, however if layouts are specified with exact pixel values rather than
the other suggested options the developers can easily make the necessary changes with the
help of published content. The support for porting legacy applications to add support for
larger or smaller screens is rather much simpler in case of Android. Sometimes it might be as
simple as adding the following into their AndroidManifest.xml

4. Stable platform: Owing to its Linux core, the Android operating system from Google
exhibits rock solid stability and resists crashes. As such, the apps developed on this platform
exhibit the same characteristic, resulting in rock solid stability, resistance to anomalies in the
system.

5. Many sales options: The Android apps can be sold in a variety of ways. There is the
Android App Market, which the majority of users access in order to purchase and download
Android apps. Secondly, there are third party stores that just about anyone can use to sell
their apps. Even you can set up your own store to sell the apps, which is a huge plus,
considering many other popular platforms force you to sell apps from their stores only.

6. Excellent ROI: The Android apps cost quite a good amount to download; hence you can be
assured of getting excellent returns over your investment. All you have to do is find a good
Android application developer for getting your apps built, and upload it in a store that is
offering good commissions over sales.

74
As Android’s growth continues to explode since the release of the Droid, one developer, in
fact, wrote that his app, which was showing modest, double-digit daily sales late last year,
now reports that his app is making $13,000 a month.

But in order to net a steady stream of income it is important to partner with a well reputed
organization with an established record of delivering robust mobile applications and someone
who can contribute not just from technology perspective but also add value by engaging in
providing suggestions for future enhancements of the product.

For starters, check out Techendeavour.com. Endeavour Software Technologies is an expert in

mobile technology and advises startups, SMBs and enterprises in defining the right mobile
application, selecting appropriate technologies, wireless carriers’ relationship, and establish
innovative roadmap for the continuous success as the future technologies changes over time.

75
4. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

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.

76
5. 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

77
6.Example Code:
package com.DialANumber;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.KeyEvent;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.LinearLayout;

public class DialANumber extends Activity {

EditText mEditText_number = null;
LinearLayout mLinearLayout_no_button = null;

78
Button mButton_dial = null;

/** Called when the activity is first created. */

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

mLinearLayout_no_button = new LinearLayout(this);

mEditText_number = new EditText(this);

mEditText_number.setText("5551222");
mLinearLayout_no_button.addView(mEditText_number);

mButton_dial = new Button(this);

mButton_dial.setText("Dial!");
mLinearLayout_no_button.addView(mButton_dial);
mButton_dial.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
performDial();
}
});

setContentView(mLinearLayout_no_button);
}

public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {

if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_CALL) {
performDial();
return true;
}
return false;
}

public void performDial(){

79
 if(mEditText_number!=null){
try {
startActivity(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL, Uri.parse("tel:" +
mEditText_number.getText())));
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
S }//if
}

80