What's "ANDROID applications development"?

     
      Android is an open-source software stack for a wide range of mobile devices and a corresponding open-source project led by Google. It's now the dominant operating system for mobile devices with nearly 80 percent of the smartphones market.

   Android is a mobile platform designed  primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers and based on a customized linux kernel that manages the hardware to provide different functionalities such as resources management, networking, drivers and security.

    Android was initially developed by a group of programmers as a startup, It was  backed financially by Google and later bought in 2005. With the founding of the Open Handset Alliance in 2007, a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices, android was announced as an open source operating system and the first Android-powered phone was sold in October 2008.

     Google is considered the basic company in the development of android with the release of the Google Nexus One. And Android platform is still evolving.

     Android versions are developing under a codename of desserts  and released according to alphabetical order: Cupcake , Donut , Eclair , Froyo , Gingerbread , Honeycomb , Ice Cream Sandwich , Jelly Bean, KitKat and Lollipop. 

     

     How to start developing applications for this platform?

     Developers have the choice to use Java or C/C++ as their primary programming language. But in practice most android developers prefer using Java with Android Studio. Tools and support are provided with the official site of android developers to build applications in Java.

     Android developers  used the Dalvik virtual machine with optimizations for mobile devices to run java binary code and they rebuilt the standard library and provided a library/framework that runs smoothly even on an older generation mobile device especially, for the UI and graphics library.

     During developing android apps, we will manage xml codes for UI (User Interface) and java codes for the control of the app functionalities.

     First we have to set up our android development environment which will be the next lesson.