The new world of the 21st century is a web of invisible wires which have paced up the life significantly as we know it. Mobile phones, technology, internet, telecommunication have undergone a tremendous change and still continues to grow. And all this has happened in a very quick period of time. Most importantly mobile phones are the most frequently used technology that is the most required by all. Starting from the buttons to the touch screens, developing constantly over time and also rapidly. Their software has undergone a tremendous change and it keeps on grooming. That has also increased the expectations and has resulted in increase in the demand as well.
And the process, the term that is used for creating various software for the android version of the phones is called android development process. Also new applications are created for the android operating system in the languages like C++ and java. It uses the android software development kit.
DEVOLOPMENT TOOLS
Android software development kit
It includes various development tools. Debugger, emulator, documentation, sample code etc. are some of them. In addition to it command line tools like java development kit and apache ant are required to create and build and also debug android applications.
Android debug bridge
It runs command on an android network.
Fastboot
Fastboot commands
Flash
Erase
Reboot
Devices
Format
External hardware
With the help of these android device can interact with external electronics like android open accessory development kit.
Third party tools
Android build
It enables callers to build android apk file using tools like aapt, dx, javax, jarsigner etc.
Basic4 android
It makes android programming for regular visual basic programmers.
Coreliu
It helps the non-technical writers to write content for educational apps.
Corona sdk
It is a software development kit to build mobile applications for ipad, iphone and android devices.
Lazarus
Ruby motion
Front end development tools
UI design tools
SDK’s device features
Cross platform support
Software development kit uses application programming interfaces to a particular programming language. They present the tools like debugging in an integrated development environment. It includes sample codes and technical notes and other supporting documentation to help with the clarification process referring to their primary source material.
Incompatible licenses cannot develop them, only compatible licenses are authorized to do so. Without that software cannot be build.
Applications
They are written using android software development kit and with the aid of a programming language. Java is the most common programming language. And it can also be C++, or java can be combined with C++.
The software development kit includes various development tools like debugger and software libraries and tutorials.
Android also has third party applications which can be acquired aby downloading and installing android’s apk or an application store like google play store. Google play store is the primary application store installed in the android devices. It allows users to browse, download, install and update applications provided, licensed by google. Various third-party application marketplaces exist for android. These are distributed under free and open source licenses.
Open source community
Android’s source code is released by google under open source licensing. And thus other developers always look forward the extract the maximum advantage out of this by third party installations and community driven projects. However it has not always been the case. Earlier the third party users were not allowed and often this practice was also discouraged. Manufactures used to have a lot of concerns regarding the production of products and devices with technical faults and defects, and a lot of technical deficiencies that would further bring down their market value. So they refrain from indulging into the practices of third party trade.
Distributions and market share
As per open source licensing, the community of open source users share android based distributions. They add their own customizations and modification to widen the scope and arena of distribution. Rooting the device, custom firmware are some of the features to it. It helps to modify and have fewer and fewer faults in the device. Like cyanogen mode is an example of custom firmware.
As of 2013 there have been over 25 billion downloads and 1 million applications have been developed for android. Android smartphone shipments have been predicted to exceed 1.5 billion unites by 2020.
Android uses android runtime as its runtime environment which uses ahead of time compilation.
Scope of surveillance
The issue of privacy has been always at the core of human lives and as the governments tend to be very careful in that regard, various whistleblowers have shown the picture of how the data and privacy of lives is often on the line. People like Edward Snowden and Jullian Assange have been great expounders in that matter and have exposed the bitter truth. So with that view the privacy also is given prime importance.
From technical security to licensing, to leverage over manufacturers, everything is worked on quite carefully every step of the way and made sure that it reaches the public and the people are able to enjoy the benefits with utmost security and privacy being the supreme agenda.
