What is Android ?

Samsung, a manufacturer of phones that run Android, even got in legal trouble for allegedly copying the look of iPhones.

Unlike Apple, Google lets any company use Android.

This means that while a Google phone will run Android, so will every phone made by Samsung, LG, HTC and many more.

Android is a mobile operating system (OS) first developed by a Silicon Valley company by the name of Android Inc

This is because Android is open source – this means Google lets companies use the basic version of Android and then change its look to suit how that company wants it to look on its phones. That’s why not all Android phones look the same when you turn them on.

A collaboration spearheaded by Google in 2007 through the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) gave Android an edge in delivering a complete software set, which includes the main OS, middleware and specific mobile application, or app.

This is because any phone at any price can technically run Android, though an £800 phone will run it faster than a £200 one.

Patterned after the Linux kernel, the Android also was released as open source code.

Google keeps it this way, and it means that despite the popularity of iPhones in the West, Android is actually the best-selling smartphone operating system worldwide since 2011.

Development for the Android may be done through Windows, Linux or Mac. Although primarily written in Java, there is no Java Development Machine (JDM) in the platform.

A lot of people say Android is ‘less secure’ than Apple iPhones, but this isn’t always true. Apple does keep its operating system tightly guarded and famously has excellent security

But if you buy an Android phone and are sensible about only downloading safe, familiar apps then you should be absolutely fine.

Instead of allowing Java programs to run through the JDM, Google developed Dalvik, a virtual machine specifically for the Android.

Android OS is a Linux-based platform for mobile phones. Android was released under the Apache v2 open source license.

Dalvik runs recompiled Java code and reads it as Dalvik bytecode and was designed to optimize battery power and maintain functionality in an environment with limited memory and CPU power, such as that of mobile phones, netbooks and tablet PCs.

Android was developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a coalition of hardware, software and telecommunications companies.

More than 30 companies were involved in the OHA, including Qualcomm, Broadcom, HTC, Intel, Samsung, Motorola, Sprint, Texas Instruments and Japanese wireless carriers KDDI and NTT DoCoMo.

One of the Android’s selling points is an ability to break down application boundaries

Android began its life as a Palo Alto-based startup company, founded in 2003. That company was subsequently acquired by Google in 2005.

The Android platform includes an operating system based upon Linux, a GUI, a Web browser and end user applications that can be downloaded

Although the initial demonstrations of Android featured a generic QWERTY smartphone and large VGA screen, the operating system was written to run on relatively inexpensive handsets with conventional numeric keypads.

The embedded video below features Google's Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discussing the availability of the SDK and the open source prospects of the platfom.

Android is software for mobile phones, tablets and a growing range of devices encompassing everything from wearable computing to in-car entertainment. It launched in 2003 and is the world’s most popular mobile operating system (OS).

Another advantage is that it is easily developed, not to mention its speed of app development

Android is an open source project (led by Google but it doesn't belong to them) called AOSP (Android Open Source Project). Google uses this project as a base to create its version of Android, which is then used by the other manufacturers.