The Android Story

An automaton that resembles a human being. Probably, that is what a dictionary will offer you if you try to look up this word. I hope you would not agree less to it. Well my perception is not driven by the partial derivatives of the environments that this word plugs itself at times but rather a full time integration of its pertinence. The word itself has compelled me a lot at time to write about it. I will try to bring a comprehensive picture about Android highlighting the technical and commercial aspect of Android. This is the android story.

NEED

Let us look at how Android arrived on the Mobile OS landscape. Mobile phones use a variety of operating systems such as Symbian OS, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, Mobile Linux, iPhone operating system (based on Mac OS X), Moblin (from Intel), and many other proprietary operating systems. So far no single operating system has become the de facto standard. The available APIs and environments for developing mobile applications are too restrictive and seem to fall behind when compared to desktop frameworks. This is where Google comes in. The Android platform promised openness, affordability, open source code, and a high-end development framework.

HISTORICAL SCOOP

Back in July 2005, when Google seemed to have so much money it didn't know what to do with, it quietly went about buying up a load of start-up companies. Some of these never really saw the light of day: for instance, Dodgeball, a service that allowed you to text a group of friends in a similar way to Twitter, has never really appeared anywhere in Google's stable. But at the same time , Google bought Android, Inc., a teeny tiny startup company, based in Palo Alto, California. Some of the people who went over to work at Google were Rich Miner, the co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Andy Rubin, co-founder of Danger (a software services company), Chris White, and engineer at WebTV, and Nick Sears, the former VP of T-Mobile. Rubin and his minions (I love calling them that. Sorry, guys.) began developing a Linux-based operating system for cell phones and other mobile devices. Their main marketing targets were handset makers and carriers. Their winning pitch? An easy operating system that was flexible and upgradeable at the same time. .

In December 2006, widespread reports of Google hawking its wares round to all the major manufacturers and carriers began to circulate; it was believed the new handset would be designed to work around location-based services and implement a whole host of Google Labs' ideas, as well as the old favorites Maps and Mail. In fact, the fact Google was spotted more times than a Big Brother reject in the media meant it became a matter of when and not if a gPhone would be announced.

And then the Californians went and sprang a huge surprised on the world: not only had it not been working on a handset, it had been developing the core of a whole new open-source OS to rival the likes of Symbian, Microsoft and couple of others who were then the market leaders. And all those clandestine meetings? The beginnings of what we now know as the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), including HTC, LG, Samsung, T-Mobile and a whole host of other names. What many people fail to realize, especially those who call it 'Google's Android', is that the new platform was born out of this group, not Google incorporating the help of others. But yes its an undeniable fact that Google was clearly the main driving force behind the new system, but all factions of the OHA stand to do well from the success of the OS.

TECHNICAL ANDROID

Technically Speaking 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. The Android SDK supports most of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) except for the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) and Swing. In place of AWT and Swing, Android SDK has its own extensive modern UI framework. Because you’re programming your applications in Java, you could expect that you need a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that is responsible for interpreting the runtime Java byte code. A JVM typically provides the necessary optimization to help Java reach performance levels comparable to compiled languages such as C and C++. Android offers its own optimized JVM to run the compiled Java class files in order to counter the handheld device limitations such as memory, processor speed, and power. This virtual machine is called the Dalvik Virtual Machine

Application Framework

By providing an open development platform, Android offers developers the ability to build extremely rich and innovative applications. Developers are free to take advantage of the device hardware, access location information, run background services, set alarms, add notifications to the status bar, and much, much more. Developers have full access to the same framework APIs used by the core applications. The application architecture is designed to simplify the reuse of components; any application can publish its capabilities and any other application may then make use of those capabilities (subject to security constraints enforced by the framework). This same mechanism allows components to be replaced by the user. Underlying all applications is a set of services and systems, including:

• A rich and extensible set of Views that can be used to build an application, including lists, grids, text boxes, buttons, and even an embeddable web browser
• Content Providers that enable applications to access data from other applications (such as Contacts), or to share their own data
• A Resource Manager, providing access to non-code resources such as localized strings, graphics, and layout files
• A Notification Manager that enables all applications to display custom alerts in the status bar
• An Activity Manager that manages the lifecycle of applications and provides a common navigation backstack

Libraries

Android includes a set of C/C++ libraries used by various components of the Android system. These capabilities are exposed to developers through the Android application framework. Some of the core libraries are listed below:

• System C library - a BSD-derived implementation of the standard C system library (libc), tuned for embedded Linux-based devices
• Media Libraries - based on Packet Video's Open CORE; the libraries support playback and recording of many popular audio and video formats, as well as static image files, including MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, and PNG
• Surface Manager - manages access to the display subsystem and seamlessly composites 2D and 3D graphic layers from multiple applications
• LibWebCore - a modern web browser engine which powers both the Android browser and an embeddable web view
• SGL - the underlying 2D graphics engine
• 3D libraries - an implementation based on OpenGL ES 1.0 APIs; the libraries use either hardware 3D acceleration (where available) or the included, highly optimized 3D software rasterizer
• Free Type - bitmap and vector font rendering
• SQLite - a powerful and lightweight relational database engine available to all applications

The familiarity and simplicity of the Java programming language coupled with Android’s extensive class library makes Android a compelling platform to write programs for. For more refer ANDROID's Developer site.

COMMERCIAL ANDROID

Undoubtedly Android has been one of the most successful Operating System for Mobile Devices. It has been complimenting bankruptcies offered by Symbian and Windows Operating System. In a very short span of time it has gained momentum in the market that has been churning for quite a time.

2008, the debut year for Android only saw one phone, the G1, but the little (and ugly, let's face it) device was opening the road for the multitude of great phones soon to follow so we decided it was worth it to create a 2008 category just to honor this phone.

2009 was the make or break year for Android, we had some great phones, most from HTC, but also from larger manufacturers like Motorola, LG and Samsung. It was the year when people started to notice there is an alternative to the iPhone in the Smartphone market.

2010 was a great year for Android phones, with more than 30-40 phones floating the market, the trend is likely to see itself rising.

Currently, there are over 40 Android smartphones available in Indian market with prices ranging from 32K to 60K INR. Now, that is HUGE number and sometimes it is hard to find the best device in a fixed budget. I am trying to Categorize some of these into High End, Mid Range and Entry Level

High End Android Phones

• HTC Desire HD  
• HTC Desire Z
• Samsung Galaxy S
• Dell Streak

Mid Range Android Phones

• HTC Desire
• Motorola Defy
• Motorola Milestone
• Dell XCD 35
• HTC Legend

Entry Level Android Phones

• Huawei Ideos
• LG Optimus One
• Samsung Galaxy 3
• Samsung Galaxy 551

 

HTC was the manufacturer that announced the major Android devices for the year 2010, but Samsung did an excellent job with the impressive and powerful new Samsung Galaxy S II. These are the some of the most important Android phones that have come on the stage.

FINALLY

If you don't own an Android probably you will fail to understand the Android Spirit. According to data from the NPD Group, unit sales for Android OS handsets were second among all the Smartphone OS handsets marketed in the U.S.A in Q1 2010, with BlackBerry OS being the leader, but the important thing for Android is that it is now having a bleeding edge in the iPhone vs Android battle. Google is definitely leading the market for now, but what would be interesting to see is that how does the competitor products patronize themselves. Are they planning to come out with technology that will pose challenge to Android, to the extent that we see some more aspect of it. In this race of engineering and re-engineering we are the one who enjoying the dish. A lot is yet to be seen but definitely a race is set on. A race that is going to re define the Digital Life.

 

References - developers site, techradar, wiki, andro-phones, economic times, nytimes, techportal