Android News Android Development Make Money FEB 17 2012 Android Architecture The Key Concepts of Android OS In the earlier post on Android Development, we ve learned how to install and setup a complete Android development environment. Now, before we start development, you should know the Android architecture in detail. 47 Being an Android user you may know how the basic functions such as making a call, sending a text message, changing the system settings, install or uninstall apps etc. Well! All Android users know these, but not enough for a developer. Then what else details are a developer required to know about Android, I ll explain. To be a developer, you should know all the key concepts of Android. That is, you should know all the nuts and bolts of Android OS. Privacy Here we start: Android Architecture Diagram: Stay Connected Like Share 65 people like this. Be the first of your friends. Find us on Facebook Android-App-Market.com Like 355 people like Android-App-Market.com. Facebook social plugin Android-App-Market Follow +1 The above figure shows the diagram of Android Architecture. The Android OS can be referred to as a software stack of different layers, where each layer is a group of sveral program components. Together it includes operating system, middleware and important applications. Each layer in the architecture provides different services to the layer just above it. We will examine the features of each layer in detail. + 92 Follow @AndroidAppMarkt Linux Kernel The basic layer is the Linux kernel. The whole Android OS is built on top of the Linux 2.6 Kernel with some further architectural changes made by Google. It is this Linux that interacts with the hardware and contains all the essential hardware drivers. Drivers are programs that control and communicate with the hardware. For example, consider the Bluetooth function. All devices has a Bluetooth hardware in it. Therefore the kernel must include a Bluetooth driver to communicate with the Bluetooth hardware. The Linux kernel also acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and other software layers. Android uses the Linux for all its core functionality such as Memory management, process management, networking, security settings etc. As the Android is built on a most popular and proven foundation, it made the porting of Android to variety of hardware, a relatively painless task. Libraries The next layer is the Android s native libraries. It is this layer that enables the device to handle different types of data. These libraries are written in c or c++ language and are specific for a particular hardware. Some of the important native libraries include the following:
Surface Manager: It is used for compositing window manager with off-screen buffering. Off-screen buffering means you cant directly draw into the screen, but your drawings go to the off-screen buffer. There it is combined with other drawings and form the final screen the user will see. This off screen buffer is the reason behind the transparency of windows. Media framework: Media framework provides different media codecs allowing the recording and playback of different media formats SQLite: SQLite is the database engine used in android for data storage purposes WebKit: It is the browser engine used to display HTML content OpenGL: Used to render 2D or 3D graphics content to the screen Android Runtime Android Runtime consists of Dalvik Virtual machine and Core Java libraries. Dalvik Virtual Machine It is a type of JVM used in android devices to run apps and is optimized for low processing power and low memory environments. Unlike the JVM, the Dalvik Virtual Machine doesn t run.class files, instead it runs.dex files..dex files are built from.class file at the time of compilation and provides hifger efficiency in low resource environments. The Dalvik VM allows multiple instance of Virtual machine to be created simultaneously providing security, isolation, memory management and threading support. It is developed by Dan Bornstein of Google. Core Java Libraries These are different from Java SE and Java ME libraries. However these libraries provides most of the functionalities defined in the Java SE libraries. Application Framework These are the blocks that our applications directly interacts with. These programs manage the basic functions of phone like resource management, voice call management etc. As a developer, you just consider these are some basic tools with which we are building our applications. Important blocks of Application framework are: Activity Manager: Manages the activity life cycle of applications Content Providers: Manage the data sharing between applications Telephony Manager: Manages all voice calls. We use telephony manager if we want to access voice calls in our application. Location Manager: Location management, using GPS or cell tower Resource Manager: Manage the various types of resources we use in our Application Applications Applications are the top layer in the Android architecture and this is where our applications are gonna fit. Several standard applications comes pre-installed with every device, such as: SMS client app Dialer Web browser Contact manager As a developer we are able to write an app which replace any existing system app. That is, you are not limited in accessing any particular feature. You are practically limitless and can whatever you want to do with the android (as long as the users of your app permits it). Thus Android is opening endless opportunities to the developer. Like 10 Tweet 9 You Might Also Like Mobile websites Best Practices - Differences In Setup Android Development Android Project Structure in Eclipse
Desktop And Mobile Application Design and Layout Environment- Complete Tutorial By android-apps Posted in Android Development Tagged android architecture, Android Development Cheap Android Phones in 2012 Android Application Components 47 comments on Android Architecture The Key Concepts of Android OS Prasanna JULY 10, 2012 @ 2:39 PM Hi, Your article is really nice. You have explained the OS architecture concept using simple English words which every one can easily understand. Thanks. All the best to do this good work. Arun JULY 31, 2012 @ 12:49 AM very nice Hemant Anpat AUGUST 16, 2012 @ 11:51 AM Hi, Your article is really nice. veeranjaneyulu gorantla AUGUST 24, 2012 @ 12:14 PM nice one anonymus OCTOBER 1, 2012 @ 3:44 PM nicely written article. Venkatesh OCTOBER 18, 2012 @ 10:48 AM Can you please help me to know the list of available native libriary in Android. MITESH NOVEMBER 20, 2012 @ 2:54 PM THANKS Kiran NOVEMBER 26, 2012 @ 2:19 AM Simple and clear Sivaprasad NOVEMBER 30, 2012 @ 12:44 PM Good One..! renjith DECEMBER 8, 2012 @ 10:06 AM really a good work. ComputerTutorials DECEMBER 13, 2012 @ 11:03 PM Very useful information. Good work. kaikeraut DECEMBER 20, 2012 @ 11:33 AM okay okay.. need more explanation.. explain android directory structure if possible.
kaikeraut recently posted..creating Your First Android App Author DECEMBER 21, 2012 @ 10:38 PM I think this post will help Visit: Android Project Structure in Eclipse osos DECEMBER 30, 2012 @ 2:24 AM v.v.nice article.now i fully knows about architecture thanx Sreeharsha JANUARY 1, 2013 @ 5:59 PM ITs very useful. Short and sweet article Jimmy JANUARY 8, 2013 @ 10:03 AM Nice article about android layers, simple and clear. Jimmy recently posted..android Application Spy Camera OS (Open Source) prasanna JANUARY 11, 2013 @ 2:07 PM Awesome it helped me very much lee JANUARY 11, 2013 @ 7:24 PM Simple and easy to understand PINGBACK: how does an android app does not disturb the other one : Android Community - For Application Development rakesh JANUARY 18, 2013 @ 11:24 AM nice i relay enjoy and this is very usefull Sumit Patel JANUARY 19, 2013 @ 11:28 AM can you arrange some examples and easy sample source for creating activities. i need to practice for creating activities. anu... JANUARY 21, 2013 @ 3:57 PM can you arrange some examples and easy sample source for creating activities. i need to practice for creating activities. Isuru FEBRUARY 6, 2013 @ 12:47 AM Very helpful Article. I was searching such a detailed article about android for 3,4 days. thanx again gaurav sharma FEBRUARY 13, 2013 @ 10:36 AM Very nice article it helped me lot gaurav sharma recently posted..creating Your First Android App bindu kumari FEBRUARY 18, 2013 @ 3:47 PM Its really very simple and nice content of Android Architecture.
bindu kumari recently posted..creating Your First Android App sanjeevakumar FEBRUARY 19, 2013 @ 12:52 PM This article is very very nice.simple to understand the whole architecture.. cmamatha FEBRUARY 20, 2013 @ 9:43 PM this article is very good simple to understand the architecture thanks all the best to do good work Jagannadam FEBRUARY 23, 2013 @ 11:56 AM good, neat and better understanding of the basics thank u buddy. better explain about the kernel functions in detail.. Om Kumar Jami MARCH 12, 2013 @ 11:14 PM Explained very nicely in short Sri Lakshmi Tulsi MARCH 13, 2013 @ 9:58 PM Hi App s Market.com, Good Document it is very nice and good to understand. How the application will work in the back end.. Thanks Providing such a valuable mater.. Regards, Sri Lakshmi Tulasi Alaa Harraz JUNE 3, 2013 @ 6:06 PM Very helpful Article. KC Raju JUNE 8, 2013 @ 9:36 AM It s really very useful Sneha Ingale JUNE 10, 2013 @ 1:20 PM Very good. Short n simple. kajal JUNE 25, 2013 @ 2:40 PM was of great help thanks indeed n good work. harsh JUNE 29, 2013 @ 11:18 AM realy nyc artical Naik SEPTEMBER 12, 2013 @ 11:59 AM Excellent Explanation Naik - Telangana SEPTEMBER 12, 2013 @ 12:01 PM
Nice Article Vishal Bhatnagar SEPTEMBER 24, 2013 @ 12:19 PM Excellent Explanation nandan NOVEMBER 18, 2013 @ 11:21 PM Nice article for beginners.thanks sir! Sandhya Sasidharan NOVEMBER 26, 2013 @ 7:53 PM nice explanation deepak NOVEMBER 27, 2013 @ 6:12 AM very good and easy expln. jay JANUARY 22, 2014 @ 10:42 AM thank u bro awesome article Gopinaath JANUARY 23, 2014 @ 2:25 PM Its nice..thank you friend marella siri FEBRUARY 4, 2014 @ 7:53 AM it s wonderful gathering about android it is very helpful for my seminar also thanks for your social service amit singh APRIL 12, 2014 @ 11:39 AM need some more explanations on components sanjeevakumar JULY 15, 2014 @ 1:12 PM Thanks a lot for such a wonderful explanation. priyanka dogra AUGUST 1, 2014 @ 8:57 AM Thanks alot for that information thatsz really nice i need more information Leave a Reply Name * Email * Website 4 = two
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