ANDROID

What is Android??? Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. The Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.
Android is a Linux based operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.The first android tablet was released in 2006, a year before the Apple iPad 1. Google purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005.The unveiling of the Android distribution in 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 86 hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google releases the Android code as open-source, under the Apache License. The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android.
Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of the devices. Developers write primarily in a customized version of Java. Apps can be downloaded from third-party sites or through online stores such as Android Market, the app store run by Google. As of October 2011 there were more than 400,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from the Android Market as of December 2011 exceeded 10 billion.
Android was listed as the best-selling smartphone platform worldwide in Q4 2010 by Canalys with over 200 million Android devices in use by November 2011. According to Google’s Andy Rubin, as of December 2011 there are over 700,000 Android devices activated every day.

Features

• Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
• Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
• Integrated browser based on the open source WebKitengine
• Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional)
• SQLite for structured data storage
• Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
• GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
• Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent)
• Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)
• Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE