What is andriod

What is Android?
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 begindeveloping applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.
Features
• Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
• Dalvik virtual machine optimizedfor 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, toolsfor debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE

Android Architecture
The following diagram shows the major components of the Android operating system. Eachsection is described in more detail below.

Applications
Android will ship with a set of core applications including an email client, SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. Allapplications are written using the Java programming language.
Application Framework
By providing an open development platform, Android offers developers the ability to build extremely rich andinnovative applications. Developers are free to take advantage of the device hardware, access location information, run background services, set alarms, add notifications to the status bar, and much, muchmore.
Developers have full access to the same framework APIs used by the core applications. The application architecture is designed to simplify the reuse of components; any application can publish...