Android OS: Prominent Platform in Smartphone Industry
Starting from its first release worldwide in late 2008 Android OS has come a long way from a simple OS, made just for mobiles to all the way becoming the basic OS of almost all smart devices out there in the market. The founder of android who just used simple platform like C, C++ and Java, have now been more and more customized. Today android has become an OS which is being used in all kinds of devices like tablets, mobile phones, etc. The main reason for the advancement of android is that it is an open source OS. Anybody and everybody can edit it to the extent they want. The mobile companies that take up android for their phone as OS have to file a patent so as to save their copyright. Thus one drawback of being open source is that they are prone to many security issues.
Features Giving Edge to Android
The biggest advantage of having android phone is that you can download free apps for almost everything you do and the other reason is, the devices running on android have become very customizable. They have touchscreens that give a real life touch experience. Because of the productivity of Android there are many applications which are being developed which can do all sorts of work. Today people can be connected to a social network, listen music, take snaps and do many other work simultaneously. It has given new dimension to multitasking.
Development and Technical Aspects
Android is developed privately by Google which on release is made open source and then can be modified as required by different companies. Also an initial version is being released by Google in its Nexus series of devices. Each version released is kept in mind to support the new hardware and further increasing its productivity. Android is based on Linux kernel having Java compatibility. The typical Linux is used to develop the android by Google and when it is out of the Google, it has to go through more customization to prevent any bugs and compatibility issues. Some of these issues were woken locks which were then fixed outside the typical Linux kernel. Also if developed only with typical kernel, it would have been difficult to support all the sets of GNU libraries which help in port detection and other port related features. Also the kernel made sure that the devices should conserve power by managing RAM usage by automatically shutting it off when not being used. Also when an application is left out for a long time in idle mode or when the battery is running low, the OS starts killing background applications which are felt as less important. With each new update feature and capability are added which perform these tasks even more efficiently. But then, comes there is the problem of incompatibility of older devices which each update. New OS may not run as smoothly and as good as it does on the new and upgraded device. But then being so popular these drawbacks does not hurt a lot.
Android as told earlier has many security concerns which have alternatives like Security application like antivirus, malware detector, etc. Thus android has come up to be the most trusted and popular OS in the market today. And with about 75% Smartphone running on android its success has been proved. If it continues like this soon there will be only one major OS platform i.e. Android.