Android is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Initially developed by Android, Inc., which Google backed financially and later bought in 2005,
The user interface of Android is based on direct manipulation, using touch inputs that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching and reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects.
The user interface of Android is based on direct manipulation, using touch inputs that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching and reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects.
Internal hardware such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and proximity sensors are used by some applications to respond to additional user actions, for example adjusting the screen from portrait to landscape depending on how the device is oriented. Android allows users to customize their home screens with shortcuts to applications and widgets, which allow users to display live content, such as emails and weather information, directly on the home screen. Applications can further send notifications to the user to inform them of relevant information, such as new emails and text messages.
Despite its success on smartphones, initially Android tablet adoption was slow. One of the main causes was the chicken or the egg situation where consumers were hesitant to buy an Android tablet due to a lack of high quality tablet apps, but developers were hesitant to spend time and resources developing tablet apps until there was a significant market for them.The content and app "ecosystem" proved more important than hardware specs as the selling point for tablets. Due to the lack of Android tablet-specific apps in 2011, early Android tablets had to make do with existing smartphone apps that were ill-suited to larger screen sizes, whereas the dominance of Apple's iPad was reinforced by the large number of tablet-specific iOS apps.
Platform usage
| Version | Code name | Release date | API level | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.4 | KitKat | October 31, 2013 | 19 | 1.4% |
| 4.3.x | Jelly Bean | July 24, 2013 | 18 | 7.8% |
| 4.2.x | November 13, 2012 | 17 | 15.4% | |
| 4.1.x | July 9, 2012 | 16 | 35.9% | |
| 4.0.3–4.0.4 | Ice Cream Sandwich | December 16, 2011 | 15 | 16.9% |
| 3.2 | Honeycomb | July 15, 2011 | 13 | 0.1% |
| 2.3.3–2.3.7 | Gingerbread | February 9, 2011 | 10 | 21.2% |
| 2.2 | Froyo | May 20, 2010 | 8 | 1.3% |
These charts provide data about the relative number of devices accessing the Play Store recently and running a given version of the Android platform, as of January 11, 2014.
Source : Wikipedia
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