Android: A Glimpse Into the Near Future

Initially sponsored by Google, Android is advertised as the first complete, open, and free mobile smartphone platform. The Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies, is developing Android.

Android was supposedly built from the ground-up to enable developers to create compelling mobile applications, and it is touted as a truly open platform, but others would disagree. Nevertheless, you can do far more with this than the Apple iPhone or Windows Mobile platform.

You will be able to make your own phone, as soon as the first hardware devices are available. Meanwhile, you can build and test applications with the emulator (pictured) that is generated on your computer screen with the software development kit.

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:

• Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
• Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
• Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine
• Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional)
• SQLite for structured data storage
• Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
• GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
• Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent)
• Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)
• Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE

Android relies on Linux 2.6 for core system services such as memory management, security, process management, network stack, and driver model. The kernel also acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and the rest of the software stack.

The first Android phones are slated for release later this year. Anything that has been developed with the emulator (pictured above) should be able to run on the actual phone.