Android Operating System (Mobile Devices) by Google

Android is an operating system for mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers (smartphones, netbooks, tablet computers, Google TV, etc). It is developed by the “Open Handset Alliance” led by “Google”.

Android consists of a kernel based on the Linux kernel, with middleware, libraries and APIs written in C and application software running on an application framework which includes Java-compatible libraries based on Apache Harmony. Android uses the Dalvik virtual machine with just-in-time compilation to run compiled Java code. 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.

The main hardware platform for Android is the ARM architecture. There is support for x86 from the Android-x86 project,[87] and Google TV uses a special x86 version of Android.

Android Framework/Architecture

-- Features --
Handset layouts: The platform is adaptable to larger, VGA, 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library based on OpenGL ES 2.0 specifications, and traditional smartphone layouts.

Storage: SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage purposes.

Connectivity: Android supports connectivity technologies including GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, NFC and WiMAX.

Messaging: SMS and MMS are available forms of messaging, including threaded text messaging and now Android Cloud To Device Messaging Framework(C2DM) is also a part of Android Push Messaging service.

Multiple language support: Android supports multiple human languages. The number of languages more than doubled for the platform 2.3 Gingerbread.

Web browser: The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. The browser scores a 93/100 on the Acid3 Test.

Java support: While most Android applications are written in Java, there is no Java Virtual Machine in the platform and Java byte code is not executed. Java classes are compiled into Dalvik executables and run on Dalvik, a specialized virtual machine designed specifically for Android and optimized for battery-powered mobile devices with limited memory and CPU. J2ME support can be provided via third-party applications.

Media support: Android supports the following audio/video/still media formats: WebM, H.263, H.264 (in 3GP or MP4 container), MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB (in 3GP container), AAC, HE-AAC (in MP4 or 3GP container), MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP.

Streaming media support: RTP/RTSP streaming (3GPP PSS, ISMA), HTML progressive download (HTML5