Recently I decided to switch on to another way, a way of new and very exciting capabilities → the Android world.
Really?! How so?? Are you a donkey??
I just realized for myself some of issues what do not let me sleep the last two weeks. I thought about future of Computer World and Computer Science. How that would be? From where it comes from? And with exactly, what technologies and what way it could be?
Not a big secret and deal for everyone is what a some top leader software companies is building this future and maybe the “right way”. One of such companies are Apple. Every new move chosen by Apple are staying like a standard in software and design world. That have been with Mac OSX and with any new Desktop movement and now that should be with mobile devices in the same fashion.
Wait a minute…Apple…what about Android?!
Many desktop application and whole desktop in future, possibly could move on to the mobile, smart device environment rather than stay on the single home computer or our laptop. Our home computers is constrained with movement, even our laptops is not so pleasant with movement capabilities how his little brother → mobile device. Look at iPad now. Is it not enough for many folks to do his every day job? Except programming, of course. But, if you are not a developer, not a designer and not an Engineer, everything you need are now locating on devices such as iPad or iPhone. Google’s Android is not an exception! Android is evolving in a very similar and great way, concentrating their own future on the board. However, Android has some (it is only with first observation, maybe not one) advantages opposite to Apple’s mobile technologies – he is bet iPad and iPhone like a child he is open and free to community (except mobile hardware from vendors, of course), he is evolving with community too, he is based on Linux Kernel and he is not based on JavaME stack and not violates Oracle patents at this part…
In nowadays, Android are known as very popular OS for mobile devices, rich application stack for everything we need in our everyday life, except special technical and Engineering tasks. Moreover, he possibly could evolve as a future substitution for today’s desktops with conjunction of hardware evolution. Now Google and Android is on the hot spot!
Android In a Nutshell
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
Features In a Nutshell
- 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 and IntelliJ IDEA (I much prefer!)
Android Architecture
Learning Android
What is the best resource to star learning an Android features and deep diving into with them?
We may start from Android Developer resource center to download the SDK, latest Android platform and to go throughout the DevGuide.
Maybe a more effective way to go through Android platform is to get one of the books that I took recently.
