What is Android

What is Android

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google. Android is primarily designed for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. But nowadays Android TV, Android Smart Watch or Android based smart TV’s are also using Android OS.

The Android operating system (OS) is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open source software. With open source, developers can modify and customize it for every phone. This is because we get to see different graphical user interfaces (GUIs) on different Android phones even after having the same OS.

Android was developed by Silicon Valley company in October 2003 under the name Android Inc. which was acquired by Google in 2005. Android was unveiled on November 5, 2007, and Android’s first commercial Android device was launched in September 2008. Since then, there have been major releases in the operating system and now version 12 which was released in October 2021.

Android Phones come with many built-in applications and also supports third-party applications. Developers write Android program with the help of free Android software developer kit (SDK). Android programs are written in Java language and run with the help of Java virtual machine (JVM).

Android Base Platform

Java Development Machine (JDM) platform is not used in Android despite having code written in Java. Google developed a virtual machine called Dalvik to run Java programs. After recompiling Dalvik Java code, Dalvik reads it in bytecode. It is also optimized for mobile phones and tablets to maintain battery power and functionality in environments such as limited memory and CPU power.

Java Dalvik runtime engine has been replaced by Android runtime engine in Lollipop 5.0 update. The bad Marshmallow 6.0 update replaced the Java open source runtime version with Apache Harmon. And this platform is being used in the latest Android version.

Android Versions History

There are so many versions of Android so far. The motto of each new version is to enhance the user experience with new functionality. Here are the major Android updates that have come out so far.

Version Release Date
Android 1.5, Cupcake April 27, 2009
Android 1.6, Donut September 15, 2009
Android 2.0-2.1, Eclair October 26, 2009 (initial release)
Android 2.2-2.2.3, Froyo May 20, 2010 (initial release)
Android 2.3-2.3.7, Gingerbread December 6, 2010 (initial release)
Android 3.0-3.2.6, Honeycomb February 22, 2011 (initial release)
Android 4.0-4.0.4, Ice Cream Sandwich October 18, 2011 (initial release)
Android 4.1-4.3.1, Jelly Bean July 9, 2012 (initial release)
Android 4.4-4.4.4, KitKat October 31, 2013 (initial release)
Android 5.0-5.1.1, Lollipop November 12, 2014 (initial release)
Android 6.0-6.0.1, Marshmallow October 5, 2015 (initial release)
Android 7.0-7.1.2, Nougat August 22, 2016 (initial release)
Android 8.0-8.1, Oreo August 21, 2017 (initial release)
Android 9.0, Pie August 6, 2018
Android 10.0 September 3, 2019
Android 11.0 September 8, 2020
Android 12.0 October 19, 2021

 

Android Processors

The performance of a smartphone depends on its processor. The processor is the brain of any device that controls all the functions and performance of hardware and software in the device. Most processors are used for Android devices but the processors that is commonly used in all Android devices are:

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon
  • Mediatek Processors
  • Samsung Exynos

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