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. This tutorial will teach you basic Android programming
and will also take you through some advance concepts related to Android application
development.

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

1
Beautiful UI
Android OS basic screen provides a beautiful and intuitive user interface.

2
Connectivity
GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC
and WiMAX.

3
Storage
SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage
purposes.
4
Media support
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.

5
Messaging
SMS and MMS

6
Web browser
Based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome's
V8 JavaScript engine supporting HTML5 and CSS3.

7
Multi-touch
Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made
available in handsets such as the HTC Hero.

8
Multi-tasking
User can jump from one task to another and same time various
application can run simultaneously.

9
Resizable widgets
Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content
or shrink them to save space.

10
Multi-Language
Supports single direction and bi-directional text.

11
GCM
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.

12
Wi-Fi Direct
A technology that lets apps discover and pair directly, over a high-
bandwidth peer-to-peer connection.

13
Android Beam
 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

Version Initial stable API

Name Internal codename
number(s) release date level

September 23,
Android 1.0 N/A 1.0 1
2008

Android 1.1 Petit Four 1.1 February 9, 2009 2

Android Cupcake Cupcake 1.5 April 27, 2009 3

September 15,
Android Donut Donut 1.6 4
2009

2.0 October 27, 2009 5

December 3,
Android Eclair Eclair 2.0.1 6
2009

2.1 January 11, 2010 7

Android Froyo Froyo 2.2 – 2.2.3 May 20, 2010 8

December 6,
2.3 – 2.3.2 9
2010
Android Gingerbread Gingerbread

2.3.3 – 2.3.7 February 9, 2011 10

February 22,
3.0 11
2011

Android Honeycomb Honeycomb

3.1 May 10, 2011 12

3.2 – 3.2.6 July 15, 2011 13

 4.0 – 4.0.2 October 18, 2011 14
Android Ice Cream Ice Cream
Sandwich Sandwich
December 16,
4.0.3 – 4.0.4 15
2011

4.1 – 4.1.2 July 9, 2012 16

November 13,
Android Jelly Bean Jelly Bean 4.2 – 4.2.2 17
2012

4.3 – 4.3.1 July 24, 2013 18

4.4 – 4.4.4 October 31, 2013 19

Android KitKat Key Lime Pie
4.4W – 4.4W.2 June 25, 2014 20

November 4,
5.0 – 5.0.2 21
2014
Lemon Meringue
Android Lollipop
Pie
5.1 – 5.1.1 March 2, 2015 22

Macadamia Nut
Android Marshmallow 6.0 – 6.0.1 October 2, 2015 23
Cookie

7.0 August 22, 2016 24

New York
Android Nougat
Cheesecake
7.1 – 7.1.2 October 4, 2016 25

8.0 August 21, 2017 26

Android Oreo Oatmeal Cookie

December 5,
8.1 27
2017

Android Pie Pistachio Ice Cream 9 August 6, 2018 28

 September 3,
Android 10 Quince Tart 10 29
2019

September 8,
Android 11 Red Velvet Cake 11 30
2020

Android 12 Snow Cone October 4, 2021 31

12
Android 12L Snow Cone v2 March 7, 2022 32

Android 13 Tiramisu 13 Q3 2022 33

Android IDEs
There are so many sophisticated Technologies are available to develop android
applications, the familiar technologies, which are predominantly using tools as follows
 Android Studio
 Eclipse IDE(Deprecated)