What is Android?

Android is an open source and Linux-based Operating System for mobile devices such as
smartphones and tablet computers. Android was developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by
Google, and other companies.

Android offers a unified approach to application development for mobile devices which means
developers need only develop for Android, and their applications should be able to run on
different devices powered by Android.

The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was released by Google
in 2007 where as the first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.

On June 27, 2012, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced the next Android version,
4.1 Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean is an incremental update, with the primary aim of improving the user
interface, both in terms of functionality and performance.

The source code for Android is available under free and open source software licenses. Google
publishes most of the code under the Apache License version 2.0 and the rest, Linux kernel
changes, under the GNU General Public License version 2.

Why Android ?
Features of Android

Android is a powerful operating system competing with Apple 4GS and supports great features.
Few of them are listed below −

Sr.No. Feature & Description

Beautiful UI
1
Android OS basic screen provides a beautiful and intuitive user interface.
Connectivity
2
GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC and
WiMAX.
Storage
3
SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage purposes.
Media support
4
H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB, AAC, HE-AAC, AAC 5.1, MP3, MIDI,
Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.
Messaging
5
SMS and MMS
 Web browser
6
Based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome's V8 JavaScript
engine supporting HTML5 and CSS3.
Multi-touch
7
Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in
handsets such as the HTC Hero.
Multi-tasking
8
User can jump from one task to another and same time various application can run
simultaneously.
Resizable widgets
9
Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to
save space.
Multi-Language
10
Supports single direction and bi-directional text.
GCM
11
Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a service that lets developers send short message
data to their users on Android devices, without needing a proprietary sync solution.
Wi-Fi Direct
12
A technology that lets apps discover and pair directly, over a high-bandwidth peer-to-
peer connection.
Android Beam
13
A popular NFC-based technology that lets users instantly share, just by touching two
NFC-enabled phones together.

Android Applications

Android applications are usually developed in the Java language using the Android Software
Development Kit.

Once developed, Android applications can be packaged easily and sold out either through a store
such as Google Play, SlideME, Opera Mobile Store, Mobango, F-droid and the Amazon
Appstore.

Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices in more than 190 countries around the
world. It's the largest installed base of any mobile platform and growing fast. Every day more
than 1 million new Android devices are activated worldwide.
This tutorial has been written with an aim to teach you how to develop and package Android
application. We will start from environment setup for Android application programming and
then drill down to look into various aspects of Android applications.

Categories of Android applications

There are many android applications in the market. The top categories are −

History of Android

The code names of android ranges from A to N currently, such as Aestro, Blender, Cupcake,
Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwitch, Jelly Bean, KitKat,
Lollipop and Marshmallow. Let's understand the android history in a sequence.
Android operating system is a stack of software components which is roughly divided into five
sections and four main layers as shown below in the architecture diagram.

Linux kernel

At the bottom of the layers is Linux - Linux 3.6 with approximately 115 patches. This provides a
level of abstraction between the device hardware and it contains all the essential hardware
drivers like camera, keypad, display etc. Also, the kernel handles all the things that Linux is
really good at such as networking and a vast array of device drivers, which take the pain out of
interfacing to peripheral hardware.

Libraries

On top of Linux kernel there is a set of libraries including open-source Web browser engine
WebKit, well known library libc, SQLite database which is a useful repository for storage and
sharing of application data, libraries to play and record audio and video, SSL libraries
responsible for Internet security etc.

Android Libraries

This category encompasses those Java-based libraries that are specific to Android development.
Examples of libraries in this category include the application framework libraries in addition to
those that facilitate user interface building, graphics drawing and database access. A summary of
some key core Android libraries available to the Android developer is as follows −

 android.app − Provides access to the application model and is the cornerstone of all
Android applications.
 android.content − Facilitates content access, publishing and messaging between
applications and application components.
 android.database − Used to access data published by content providers and includes
SQLite database management classes.
 android.opengl − A Java interface to the OpenGL ES 3D graphics rendering API.
 android.os − Provides applications with access to standard operating system services
including messages, system services and inter-process communication.
 android.text − Used to render and manipulate text on a device display.
 android.view − The fundamental building blocks of application user interfaces.
 android.widget − A rich collection of pre-built user interface components such as
buttons, labels, list views, layout managers, radio buttons etc.
 android.webkit − A set of classes intended to allow web-browsing capabilities to be
built into applications.

Having covered the Java-based core libraries in the Android runtime, it is now time to turn our
attention to the C/C++ based libraries contained in this layer of the Android software stack.

Android Runtime

This is the third section of the architecture and available on the second layer from the bottom.
This section provides a key component called Dalvik Virtual Machine which is a kind of Java
Virtual Machine specially designed and optimized for Android.

The Dalvik VM makes use of Linux core features like memory management and multi-threading,
which is intrinsic in the Java language. The Dalvik VM enables every Android application to run
in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine.

The Android runtime also provides a set of core libraries which enable Android application
developers to write Android applications using standard Java programming language.

Application Framework

The Application Framework layer provides many higher-level services to applications in the
form of Java classes. Application developers are allowed to make use of these services in their
applications.

The Android framework includes the following key services −

 Activity Manager − Controls all aspects of the application lifecycle and activity stack.
 Content Providers − Allows applications to publish and share data with other
applications.
  Resource Manager − Provides access to non-code embedded resources such as strings,
color settings and user interface layouts.
 Notifications Manager − Allows applications to display alerts and notifications to the
user.
 View System − An extensible set of views used to create application user interfaces.

Applications

You will find all the Android application at the top layer. You will write your application to be
installed on this layer only. Examples of such applications are Contacts Books, Browser, Games
etc

Application components are the essential building blocks of an Android application. These
components are loosely coupled by the application manifest file AndroidManifest.xml that
describes each component of the application and how they interact.

There are following four main components that can be used within an Android application −

Sr.No Components & Description

Activities
1
They dictate the UI and handle the user interaction to the smart phone screen.
Services
2
They handle background processing associated with an application.
Broadcast Receivers
3
They handle communication between Android OS and applications.
Content Providers
4
They handle data and database management issues.

Activities

An activity represents a single screen with a user interface,in-short Activity performs actions on
the screen. For example, an email application might have one activity that shows a list of new
emails, another activity to compose an email, and another activity for reading emails. If an
application has more than one activity, then one of them should be marked as the activity that is
presented when the application is launched.

An activity is implemented as a subclass of Activity class as follows −

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

}
Services

A service is a component that runs in the background to perform long-running operations. For
example, a service might play music in the background while the user is in a different
application, or it might fetch data over the network without blocking user interaction with an
activity.

A service is implemented as a subclass of Service class as follows −

public class MyService extends Service {

}

Broadcast Receivers

Broadcast Receivers simply respond to broadcast messages from other applications or from the
system. For example, applications can also initiate broadcasts to let other applications know that
some data has been downloaded to the device and is available for them to use, so this is
broadcast receiver who will intercept this communication and will initiate appropriate action.

A broadcast receiver is implemented as a subclass of BroadcastReceiver class and each

message is broadcaster as an Intent object.

public class MyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

public void onReceive(context,intent){}
}

Content Providers

A content provider component supplies data from one application to others on request. Such
requests are handled by the methods of the ContentResolver class. The data may be stored in the
file system, the database or somewhere else entirely.

A content provider is implemented as a subclass of ContentProvider class and must implement

a standard set of APIs that enable other applications to perform transactions.

public class MyContentProvider extends ContentProvider {

public void onCreate(){}
}

We will go through these tags in detail while covering application components in individual
chapters.

Additional Components

There are additional components which will be used in the construction of above mentioned
entities, their logic, and wiring between them. These components are −
S.No Components & Description

Fragments
1
Represents a portion of user interface in an Activity.
Views
2
UI elements that are drawn on-screen including buttons, lists forms etc.
Layouts
3
View hierarchies that control screen format and appearance of the views.
Intents
4
Messages wiring components together.
Resources
5
External elements, such as strings, constants and drawable pictures.
Manifest
6
Configuration file for the application.