Android is an open source and Linux-based Operating System for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Android was developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google, and other companies.
Android offers a unified approach to application development for mobile devices which means developers need only develop for Android, and their applications should be able to run on different devices powered by Android.
The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was released by Google in 2007 where as the first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.
On June 27, 2012, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced the next Android version, 4.1 Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean is an incremental update, with the primary aim of improving the user interface, both in terms of functionality and performance.
The source code for Android is available under free and open source software licenses. Google publishes most of the code under the Apache License version 2.0 and the rest, Linux kernel changes, under the GNU General Public License version 2.
Why Android ?
Features of Android
Android is a powerful operating system competing with Apple 4GS and supports great features. Few of them are listed below −
Sr.No.
Feature & Description
1
Android OS basic screen provides a beautiful and intuitive user interface.
Based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine supporting HTML5 and CSS3.
Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets such as the HTC Hero.
User can jump from one task to another and same time various application can run simultaneously.
Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space.
Supports single direction and bi-directional text.
Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a service that lets developers send short message data to their users on Android devices, without needing a proprietary sync solution.
A technology that lets apps discover and pair directly, over a high-bandwidth peer-to-peer connection.
A popular NFC-based technology that lets users instantly share, just by touching two NFC-enabled phones together.
Android Applications
Android applications are usually developed in the Java language using the Android Software Development Kit.
Once developed, Android applications can be packaged easily and sold out either through a store such as Google Play, SlideME, Opera Mobile Store, Mobango, F-droid and the Amazon Appstore.
Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices in more than 190 countries around the world. It’s the largest installed base of any mobile platform and growing fast. Every day more than 1 million new Android devices are activated worldwide.
This tutorial has been written with an aim to teach you how to develop and package Android application. We will start from environment setup for Android application programming and then drill down to look into various aspects of Android applications.
Categories of Android applications
There are many android applications in the market. The top categories are −
History of Android
The code names of android ranges from A to N currently, such as Aestro, Blender, Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwitch, Jelly Bean, KitKat, Lollipop and Marshmallow. Let’s understand the android history in a sequence.
What is API level?
API Level is an integer value that uniquely identifies the framework API revision offered by a version of the Android platform.
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5 Free Ways to Run Android Apps on Your PC
Want to use Android apps on a PC? These are the apps, services, and OSes that can make it happen.
Ever wish you could run an Android app or game on your PC so you weren’t relegated to a tiny phone screen? Maybe you need to test a feature on Android, but don’t have an Android device handy. Your options will depend on what mobile device you own or what version of Windows you’re running, but here are a few ways to run Android (and its apps) on your computer.
Mirror Your Phone With Windows
For apps installed on your phone, you don’t need anything fancy to get Android on your PC. Microsoft’s Your Phone app allows you to connect your Android mobile device to Windows in order to access apps, view notifications and photos, and send messages. You can even add Android apps to Favorites or pin them directly to the Windows taskbar.
If you want to mirror your phone screen directly, just click the phone screen image in the Your Phone desktop app. Grant permission to the app on your phone, and your phone screen will be displayed in Windows. You can then navigate the phone screen with the click of the mouse.
This isn’t always the ideal solution. While the feature will work with many Android phone manufacturers, it works best with Samsung phones. Some features require a Windows 10 PC running the May 2020 Update or later with at least 8GB of RAM and Android 11. If you’re looking to play games, this may come with some delay and graphical blurriness, and you won’t be able to easily share files from your PC directly to an app in Android. But for quick access to Android apps you already have installed, it definitely works in a pinch.
Run Your Favorite Apps With BlueStacks
If you’re just looking to run a couple apps and don’t need the emulator to look like Android, you should try BlueStacks. Over the years, it’s become the best Android app emulator around, and it’s packed with features that ensure your apps and games run smoothly. Since it uses virtualization to emulate Android, you’ll want to jump into your computer’s BIOS and enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V, if your computer supports it, for best performance.
Install BlueStacks as you would any other Windows or Mac app. BlueStacks 5, the latest version of the software, takes up 5GB of space on your computer (plus any apps you download). Open the app, and you’ll be greeted with a customized home screen and access to the Play Store. Download any apps you want, and they will appear on the BlueStacks home screen and your Windows desktop as their own shortcuts. Just double-click an icon to run the app in question.
BlueStacks is great for apps that don’t have corresponding desktop apps, but the emulator really shines when it comes to games. The emulator features built-in mappings for your mouse and keyboard, which you can customize to the touch controls you find on different Android games.
You can also adjust the resolution, DPI, FPS, and amount of CPU or RAM allocated to the emulator, ensuring you get the best balance between speed and graphical fidelity. (This is useful given that BlueStacks is fairly resource-intensive, as many virtual machines are.)
BlueStacks does, unfortunately, come with some ads and clutter, but it’s not as intrusive as it once was, and it’s a small price to pay for the functionality you get—especially considering the Android version options it offers.
Emulate Full Android Experience With Genymotion
If you’re looking to explore the Android operating system itself—rather than individual apps—Genymotion is a decent emulator. Its main product is designed for developers and costs money to use, but there is a free version of the software you can download for personal use; you just need to first create an account on the website.
Genymotion uses VirtualBox to emulate Android, so you’ll either need to have VirtualBox installed on your PC or download the version with VirtualBox bundled. Install it like you would any other program, ensuring you select the Personal Use version during the wizard. (And, like BlueStacks, you’ll want to enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V from your computer’s BIOS if you have it.)
When you start Genymotion, it’ll present you with a list of device templates you can install—this determines the screen resolution, Android version, and resources allotted to the emulator. Install the template you want and double-click it to enter Android. You’ll be able to navigate around the home screen, launch apps, and emulate certain events like GPS location.
Note that you’ll start with a very barebones version of Android that doesn’t even come with many of Google’s apps or modern features, though you can add the Play Store by clicking the Open Gapps icon in the sidebar to install it.
Also, no matter which template you choose, you won’t get any custom versions of Android—picking the Samsung Galaxy S10 template, for example, won’t get you Samsung’s One UI. It just determines the resolution and specs of the virtual machine. (Genymotion does support Android versions from 4.4 all the way up to 10.0, though.)
Genymotion works well for exploring Android’s settings and other built-in features, though I wouldn’t necessarily use it to run individual apps, as it doesn’t integrate as well with your PC as something like BlueStacks. If Genymotion doesn’t suit your needs, Google’s official Android software development kit also comes with an Android emulator, though setup is more complex.
Run Android Directly on Your PC With Android-x86
If you’re looking for something a bit more full-featured, the Android-x86 project gets you as close as you can get to true Android on your PC. Android-x86 is an open-source project that ports Android to the x86 platform, allowing you to run it on your computer instead of an ARM-based phone or tablet.
To run Android-x86, you have a couple of options. If you want to run Android on its own, as a desktop operating system for your PC, you can download it as an ISO disc image and burn it to a USB drive with a program like Rufus. Then, insert that USB drive into the PC in question, reboot, and enter the boot menu (usually by pressing a key like F12 during the boot process).
By booting from your Android-x86 USB drive, you’ll either be able to run Android in a live environment—without having any effect on your PC—or install it to your PC’s hard drive for permanent usage (and better performance).
Alternatively, if you want to run Android-x86 on top of your existing operating system, you can download the disc image and run it inside VirtualBox. This is, again, a bit more advanced if you aren’t familiar with VirtualBox, but our guide to running Windows on a Mac can get you acquainted with the process.
The official site has some tips for getting Android-x86 up and running in a virtual machine as well. It’s more work than using something like BlueStacks, but it’s also closer to pure Android, which is a nice perk.
Install Android Apps From the Amazon Appstore
With Windows 11, Microsoft adds built-in support for Android apps, but for now it’s limited to those enrolled in the Windows Insider beta program, who can currently play around with 50 apps from the Amazon Appstore. You’ll also need a PC that can run Windows 11.
Windows 11 taps into a feature called Windows Subsystem for Android, which makes Android apps compatible with Microsoft’s own OS. You’ll need to install the Amazon Appstore from the Microsoft Store, which will prompt you to install Windows Subsystem. Here’s a full rundown.
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Top Programming Languages for Android App Development
Do you know how often you check your smartphone in a day?
No? Well, according to several standard reports, that’s an astounding 100+ times a day (At least for us millennials…The rest of the population is a little saner). And the reason we are so addicted to our phones is the overwhelming sensory experience they provide in our daily lives. How so, you ask? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp (need I go on. )
So in a nutshell, smartphone apps are an integral part of our daily lives. They can be used to create connections, obtain information, or just have fun! And while creating a smartphone app is also fun, it requires a little more guidance, specifically in choosing the right programming language. That’s why this article deals with the top programming languages required for Android App Development (Android because I like it!).
What language to choose.
While Kotlin is the official language for Android, there are many other languages that can be used for Android App Development. Details about these are provided below to help you make an informed decision.
1. Java
Firstly Java was the official language for Android App Development (but now it was replaced by Kotlin) and consequently, it is the most used language as well. Many of the apps in the Play Store are built with Java, and it is also the most supported language by Google. In addition to all this, Java has a great online community for support in case of any problems (And trust me, there will be problems!).
However, Java is a complicated language for a beginner to use as it contains complex topics like constructors, null pointer exceptions, concurrency, checked exceptions, etc. Also, The Android Software Development Kit (SDK) increases the complexity to a new level!
All in all, Java is a great language to experience the full joys of Android App Development. However, it may be a little complex with beginners who would prefer to start with something easier and then return to it.
2. Kotlin
Now Kotlin is the official language for Android App Development declared by Google since 2019. Kotlin is a cross-platform programming language that may be used as an alternative to Java for Android App Development. It has also been introduced as a secondary “official” Java language in 2017. Kotlin can interoperate with Java and it runs on the Java Virtual Machine.
The only sizable difference is that Kotlin removes the superfluous features of Java such as null pointer exceptions. It also removes the necessity of ending every line with a semicolon. In short, Kotlin is much simpler for beginners to try as compared to Java and it can also be used as an “entry point” for Android App Development.
C++ can be used for Android App Development using the Android Native Development Kit(NDK). However, an app cannot be created totally using C++ and the NDK is used to implement parts of the app in C++ native code. This helps in using C++ code libraries for the app as required.
While C++ is useful for Android App Development in some cases, it is much more difficult to set up and is much less flexible. It may also lead to more bugs because of the increased complexity. So, it is better to use Java as compared to C++ as it does not provide enough gain to offset the efforts required.
C# is quite similar to Java and so it is ideal for Android App Development. Like Java, C# also implements garbage collection so there are fewer chances of memory leaks. And C# also has a cleaner and simpler syntax than Java which makes coding with it comparatively easier.
Earlier, the biggest drawback of C# was that it could run only on Windows systems as it used the .NET Framework. However, this problem was handled by Xamarin. Android (formerly Mono for Android) is a cross-platform implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure. Now, Xamarin. Android tools can be used to write native Android apps and share the code across multiple platforms.
5. Python
Python can be used for Android App Development even though Android doesn’t support native Python development. This can be done using various tools that convert the Python apps into Android Packages that can run on Android devices.
An example of this is Kivy that is an open-source Python library used for developing mobile apps. It supports Android and also encourages rapid app development (which is a win-win situation according to me!). However, a downside to this is that there won’t be native benefits for Kivy as it isn’t natively supported.
6. HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Android apps can be created using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using the Adobe PhoneGap framework that is powered by Apache Cordova. The PhoneGap framework basically allows the usage of web development skills to create hybrid apps that are shown through “WebView” but are packaged like an app.
While the Adobe PhoneGap framework is enough for basic tasks in the realm of Android App Development, it hardly requires much programming except for JavaScript. And since it needs a lot of work to even create a decent app, it is better to use the other languages in this list if you want to be called a true Android developer(Yes…That’s a thing!)
7. Dart
Ignoring Dart as a programming language in today’s context would be like ignoring the gorilla in the room (because the elephant is java). Dart is an open-source programming language that powers the Flutter framework, which is getting a lot of traction these days because of its ability to deliver beautiful and performance app for the web, desktop, and mobile in lesser time. The key selling point of dart is that it is designed by Google as a client-optimized language for fast apps on any platform. Dart mainly focuses on making UI development easier for developers with features such as hot-reload, which lets developers see changes instantly while working on the app. Dart is also known for its fast performance, it compiles to ARM and x64 machine code for mobile, desktop, and backend. And to JavaScript for the web apps.
Bonus:
Corona-
Corona is a software development kit that can be used for developing Android apps using Lua. It has two operational modes, namely Corona Simulator and Corona Native. The Corona Simulator is used to build apps directly while the Corona Native is used to integrate the Lua code with an Android Studio project to build an app using native features.
While Lua is a little limited as compared to Java, it is also much simpler and has an easier learning curve. Moreover, there are build in monetization features as well as various assets and plugins that enrich the app development experience. Corona is mostly used to create graphics applications and games but is by no means limited to that.
Conclusion
Now, it’s time to go forth and conquer Android.
There are a lot of apps such as Chat Messenger, Music players, Games, Calculators, etc. that can be created using the above languages. And there is no language that can be called a “correct language” for Android App Development. So, it’s upon you to make the correct choice of language on the basis of your objectives and preferences for each individual project. And always remember, whatever your choice, it will only expand your skill set and lead to your growth as an Android developer.
