According to android developer’s guide: 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 to begin developing applications on the android platform using Java programming language.
At android website they have provided the core specialties of the android as follows, I am elaborating the points with my own words:
It is being developed by Open Handset Allaince which is a consortium of several companies which include Texas Instrument, Broadcom corporation, Google, HTC, Intel, LG, Marvell Technology Group, Motorola, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Sprint, T-Mobile, Sony, Toshiba, Huawei Technologies and many more organizations.
A truly open source platform, Android is built upon Linux Kernel. For the application development, it uses a common virtual machine (Dalvik Virtual Machine). This virtual machine is designed to optimize memory and hardware resources in a mobile environment.
Android is built from the scratch, thoughts have been poured by many developers and various issues and concerns have been addressed to make android best suitable for the devices.
2. All applications are created equal: Android does not differentiate between the phone’s core applications and third party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to phone’s capabilities providing users with broad range of applications and services.
What does that mean in context of mobile applications? In fact that does mean there will not be restrictions from the OEMs. A developer, who has worked on J2ME and Blackberry platforms, can understand this easily. There are a lot of access restrictions imposed by OEMs for the applications developed by third party. Now with android no need to worry about those security concerns. A third party application will have similar freedom as of a native application.
3. Breaking down application boundaries: Android breaks down the barriers to building new and innovative applications.
In my view the most important innovation android does is to remove distance between web and mobile. The true spirit of the android is to make internet reach to all persons. Now different Location based applications can be developed. Different social networking site applications can be developed. Android has forced different organizations to concentrate on mobile market for their web based applications.
4. Fast & easy application development: Android provides access to a wide range of useful libraries and tools that can be used to build rich applications.
A true spirit at heart of android is to facilitate developers with a rich set of APIs. Let the developer concentrate on application development only. With the use of its SDK and eclipse based development plugin, and with official android development guide even a novice android developer can easily develop a best android mobile application.
Android is available as open source under Apache License.
First release for android was Android 1.5 also known as Cupcake. Then Android 1.6 (Donut) has been released. Then Android 2.0/2.1 (Éclair) has been released. The latest available version is Android 2.2 (Froyo).
