Android Overview

BY: Shubham
 Why Mobile App Development?
 The fact that we can! Only a few years ago you had to be i
n the Motorola inner circle to do it!
 Mobile platform is the platform of the future
 Double-digit growth in world-wide smartphone ownership 3
 Job market is hot
 Market for mobile software surges from $4.1 billion in 2009 to $17.5
billion by 20121
 2010 Dice.com survey: 72% of recruiters looking for iPhone app de
velopers, 60% for Android1
 Dice.com: mobile app developers made $85,000 in 2010 and salari
es expected to rise2
 Students (and faculty!) are naturally interested!
1 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2010/tc20101020_639668.htm

2 http://it-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB129606993144879991/Mobile-App-Developers-Wanted-at-Ad-Agencies

3http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1466313
 Why Android?
 A lot of students have them
 2010 survey by University of CO1: 22% of college stud
ents have Android phone (26% Blackberry, 40% iPhon
e)
 Gartner survey2: Android used on 22.7% of smartphon
es sold world-wide in 2010 (37.6% Symbian, 15.7% iO
S)
 Students already know Java and Eclipse
 Low learning curve
 CS0 students can use App Inventor for Android

1http://testkitchen.colorado.edu/projects/reports/smartphone/smartphone-appendix1/

2http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1543014
Why Android?
 Transferring app to phone is trivial
 Can distribute by putting it on the web
 Android Market (now Google Play) for wider distributi
on
• It’s not 1984
 Types of
Android Device
s
Various Android Phones
Galaxy Note 3
Galaxy Tablet
Android-Powered Microwave

By Touch Revolution – at CES 2010

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/30712/android-powered-microwave-cooking-goo
gle
Android-Powered Watch
Android-Powered Camera
Android-Powered TV
Android-Powered Car Radio
Android-Powered Washing Machi
ne
Android-Powered PC
Brief History
 1996
 The WWW already had websites with color and i
mages
 But, the best phones displayed a couple of lines o
f monochrome text!
 Enter:
 Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) – stripped down
HTTP for bandwidth reduction
 Wireless Markup Language (WML) – stripped down H
TML for content
Brief History
 Many issues (WAP = “Wait And Pay”)
 Few developers to produce content (it wasn’t fun!)
 Really hard to type in URLs using the small keyboar
ds
 Data fees frightfully expensive
 No billing mechanism – content difficult to monetize
 Other platforms emerged
 Palm OS, Blackberry OS, J2ME, Symbian (Nokia),
BREW, OS X iPhone, Windows Mobile
Brief History - Android
 2005
 Google acquires startup Android Inc. to start Android platform
 Work on Dalvik VM begins
 2007
 Open Handset Alliance announced
 Early look at SDK
 2008
 Google sponsors 1st  Android Developer Challenge
 T-Mobile G1 announced
 SDK 1.0 released
 Android released open source (Apache License)
 Android Dev Phone 1 released
Brief History cont.
 2009
 SDK 1.5 (Cupcake)
 New soft keyboard with “autocomplete” feature
 SDK 1.6 (Donut)
 Support Wide VGA
 SDK 2.0/2.0.1/2.1 (Eclair)
 Revamped UI, browser
 2010
 Nexus One released to the public
 SDK 2.2 (Froyo)
 Flash support, tethering
 SDK 2.3 (Gingerbread)
 UI update, system-wide copy-paste
Brief History cont.
 2011
 SDK 3.x (Honeycomb)
 Optimized for tablet support
 SDK 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
 Virtual UI buttons
 2012
 SDK 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean)
 Triple buffered graphics pipeline
Brief History cont.
 2011
 SDK 3.0/3.1/3.2 (Honeycomb) for tablets only
 New UI for tablets, support multi-core processors
 SDK 4.0/4.0.1/4.0.2/4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
 Changes to the UI, Voice input, NFC

Ice cream Sandwic

Android 4.0+
Hondroid
A

Jelly Bean
n e 3 .0

Android 4.1.1
yc -3.
om
b
Distribution of Devices

Data collected during a 14-day period ending on January 3, 2012

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
Distribution of Devices

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
What is Google Android?
 A software stack for mobile devices that includes
 An operating system
 Middleware
 Key Applications

 Uses Linux to provide core system services

 Security
 Memory management
 Process management
 Power management
 Hardware drivers
Android Architecture

More details at: http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html

Mobile Devices: Advantages
 Always with the user
 Typically have Internet access
 Typically GPS enabled
 Typically have accelerometer & compass
 Most have cameras & microphones
 Many apps are free or low-cost
Mobile Devices: Disadvantages
 Limited screen size
 Limited battery life
 Limited processor speed
 Limited and sometimes slow network access
 Limited or awkward input: soft keyboard, phone
keypad, touch screen, or stylus
 Limited web browser functionality
 Range of platforms & configurations across devi
ces link
Mobile Applications
 What are they?
 Any application that runs on a mobile device
 Types
 Web apps: run in a web browser
 HTML, JavaScript, Flash, server-side components, etc
.
 Native: compiled binaries for the device
 Often make use of web services
Android Apps
 Built using Java and new SDK libraries
 No support for some Java libraries like Swing & A
WT
 Java code compiled into Dalvik byte code (.d
ex)
 Optimized for mobile devices (better memory man
agement, battery utilization, etc.)
 Dalvik VM runs .dex files
 Development proce
ss for an Android ap
p

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/index.html
 Building and running
Compiled resources
(xml files)

Android Debug Bridge

 ADB is a client server program that connects clients on developer m

achine to devices/emulators to facilitate development.
 An IDE like Eclipse handles this entire process for you.

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/building/index.html#detailed-build
Building and Running
Applications Are Boxed
 By default, each app is run in its own Linux proc
ess
 Process started when app’s code needs to be execute
d
 Threads can be started to handle time-consuming ope
rations
 Each process has its own Dalvik VM
 By default, each app is assigned unique Linux ID
 Permissions are set so app’s files are only visible to th
at app
Android Architecture
Publishing and Monetizing

 Paid apps in Android Market, various other mar

kets
 Free, ad-supported apps in Android Market
 Ad networks (Google AdMob, Quattro Wireless)
 Sell your own ads
 Services to other developers
 Ex. Skyhook Wireless (http://www.skyhookwireless.com/)
 Contests (Android Developer Challenge)
 Selling products from within your app
Android Market (Google Play)
 https://play.google.com/store

 Has various categories, allows ratings

 Have both free/paid apps
 Featured apps on web and on phone
 The Android Market (and iTunes/App Store) is gr
eat for developers
 Level playing field, allowing third-party apps
 Revenue sharing
Publishing to Google Play
 Requires Google Developer Account
 $25 fee
 Link to a Merchant Account
 Google Checkout
 Link to your checking account
 Google takes 30% of app purchase price
Android Design Philosophy

 Applications should be:

 Fast
 Resource constraints: <200MB RAM, slow processor
 Responsive
 Apps must respond to user actions within 5 seconds
 Secure
 Apps declare permissions in manifest
 Seamless
 Usability is key, persist data, suspend services
 Android kills processes in background as needed
TY