In 2023, Android is playing an important role in our daily life. Most of us have heard about it while buying a new phone. So, we are going to discuss about android and how it is a part of the daily life of most mobile phone users. Android is an Open Source operating system that is based on Linux. Android was developed by the organization named Open Handset Alliance, which was led by Google, and some other organizations.
You must be thinking what are the other available Operating system and what is Open Source.
So basically, we only have two options for the Operation system (which many people refer to) for mobile devices. One is Android and another one is IOS (developed and managed by Apple). IOS is specially created for apple Mobile devices generally known as iPhones. In another hand, Android is a free and open-source operating system. Open source simply means software whose source code is available on the internet for free and anyone can tweak it and use it however they want to. So that’s the reason we often see different types of android on different phones. For example, when we buy a Samsung smartphone, we get to see a different user interface and different functionalities, and when we switch brands we get to see a different User interface and different functionalities but the base is the same in every Android phone. They all are made with the help of android but run a different or I should say optimized version of android according to their hardware and drivers. But when we switch to Apple there, we get to see that everything is almost the same just the UI is getting improved, and some new specifications are getting added with time.
At first, android was created only keeping smartphones in mind but with time we get to see that we are surrounded by different uses of android. Now we are using android in smart tv, vehicles, watches, and as well as in personal Computer (this is optional and we rarely get to see something like this, because pcs have different use and everything, but we can use android in our personal Computer as well.). So, I wanted to say one thing android has come a long way and it still improving day by day.
You would think that how an android application is being built can do so many things. What are the tech stacks being used to get an app working perfectly as it does? So, in this Tutorial, we are going to learn everything in depth. We are going to create a small app and we will tweak that with the idea we get after every topic.
So, the first thing we are going to do is to learn a bit more about android, and then we will dive deep into the world of android development and learn everything needed to become a good android developer.
Android, is an operating system specially designed for cellular phones(smartphones) and tablet computers. The android project started in 2003 as a project led by the American technology company Android Inc., to develop an operating system for digital cameras (because at that time we don't have cameras that can zoom, capture color pictures, etc.). So, the idea was to having an operating system for digital cameras changed because the research team members were amazed by the functionalities that os was providing. So, in 2004, the project took a turn and it changed to become an operating system for smartphones from os for digital cameras. The reason behind the decision was that Android Inc. was bought by the American search engine company Google Inc., in 2005 and Google needs a smartphone that could be sold to the poor who can't buy an iPhone (at that time only apple was making smartphones). At Google, the Android research team picked to base their plan on Linux, an open-source operating system for special computers. Then the developer's team was not sure what kind of output they will get from this.
On November 5, 2007, Google announced the beginning of a new group of companies named Open Handset Alliance, which has been founded to make a consortium of dozens of technology and mobile telephone companies or tech giants which included Intel Corporation(One of the best Computer Hardware Manufacturing Company), Motorola(The leading Mobile Phone Manufacturing brand), Inc., NVIDIA Corporation, Texas Instruments Incorporated, LG Electronics, Inc., Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel Corporation, and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom). The main motive behind the consortium was to develop and promote Android as a free open-source operating system with support for third-party applications. And that worked and a lot of new mobile manufacturers came into existence and adopted Android as the operating system for their smartphones.
Android provides a consolidated thanks to application development for mobile phones which means developers require only to develop for Android, and their software might be ready to run on a good range of devices powered by Android.
The first beta (it's to test the durability and functionalities) version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was released by Google in 2007 which was quite unstable, whereas the primary industrial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008 with all the stable functionality.
On June 27, 2012, at the Google I/O interview, Google announced a subsequent Android version, 4.1 jelly bean.
Android comes with a bunch of features that make it so powerful to use and it’s also developer friendly.