Welcome to the introduction to android, in this post we will learn the basics of android OS like what is android, the history of the android operating system, its features of Android OS, and different versions of the Android operating system.
Official Documentation: Android | The platform pushing what’s possible
What is Android?
Android is a modified Linux-based mobile operating system that was originally started by Android Inc. with the same name. In 2005, Google acquired Android and took over its development work to enter the mobile space.
Android was made open-source and free; hence most of the source code of Android is released under the open-source Apache license. That allows anyone to download the source code and change it as per their requirements, hence they can have their own flavor of the Android operating system.
The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was released by Google in 2007 whereas the first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.
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.
Features of Android
Android is a powerful open-source operating system that provides a lot of great features, those are
- Storage: Uses SQLite, lightweight relational database storage for data storage (really helpful when limited mobile memory storage is to be considered).
- Media Support: Include support for a large number of media formats for Images, Audio as well as Video, like H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR WB, AAC, MP3, MIDI, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF & BMP.
- Messaging: Both SMS and MMS are supported.
- Web Browser: Based on Open Source WebKit, now known as Chrome.
- Connectivity: Supports a large group of networks like GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, WiFi, LTE, and WiMAX.
- Hardware Support: Accelerometer Sensor, Camera, Digital Compass, Proximity Sensor & GPS, and a lot more.
- Multi-Touch: Supports multi-touch screen.
- Multi-Task: Supports application multitasking.
- Flash Support: Supports Flash.
- Tethering: Supports sharing of the Internet as wired or wireless hotspots.
Android Versions
Here is the list of its different versions and their code names:
| Version | API Level | Version Name | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 1 | N/A | September 23, 2008 |
| 1.1 | 2 | Petit Four | February 9, 2009 |
| 1.5 | 3 | Cupcake | April 27, 2009 |
| 1.6 | 4 | Donut | September 15, 2009 |
| 2.0 | 5 | Eclair | October 27, 2009 |
| 2.0.1 | 6 | Eclair | December 3, 2009 |
| 2.1 | 7 | Eclair | January 11, 2010 |
| 2.2 – 2.2.3 | 8 | Froyo | May 20, 2010 |
| 2.3 – 2.3.2 | 9 | Gingerbread | December 6, 2010 |
| 2.3.3 – 2.3.7 | 10 | Gingerbread | February 9, 2011 |
| 3.0 | 11 | Honeycomb | February 22, 2011 |
| 3.1 | 12 | Honeycomb | May 10, 2011 |
| 3.2 – 3.2.6 | 13 | Honeycomb | July 15, 2011 |
| 4.0 – 4.0.2 | 14 | Ice Cream Sandwich | October 18, 2011 |
| 4.0.3 – 4.0.4 | 15 | Ice Cream Sandwich | December 16, 2011 |
| 4.1 – 4.1.2 | 16 | Jelly Bean | July 9, 2012 |
| 4.2 – 4.2.2 | 17 | Jelly Bean | November 13, 2012 |
| 4.3 – 4.3.1 | 18 | Jelly Bean | July 24, 2013 |
| 4.4 – 4.4.4 | 19 | KitKat | October 31, 2013 |
| 4.4W – 4.4W.2 | 20 | KitKat | June 25, 2014 |
| 5.0 – 5.0.2 | 21 | Lollipop | November 4, 2014 |
| 5.1 – 5.1.1 | 22 | Lollipop | March 2, 2015 |
| 6.0 – 6.0.1 | 23 | Marshmallow | October 2, 2015 |
| 7.0 | 24 | Nougat | August 22, 2016 |
| 7.1 – 7.1.2 | 25 | Nougat | October 4, 2016 |
| 8.0 | 26 | Oreo | August 21, 2017 |
| 8.1 | 27 | Oreo | December 5, 2017 |
| 9 | 28 | Pie | August 6, 2018 |
| 10 | 29 | Android 10 | September 3, 2019 |
| 11 | 30 | Android 11 | September 8, 2020 |
| 12 | 31 | Android 12 | October 4, 2021 |
| 12.1 | 32 | Android 12L | March 7, 2022 |
| 13 | 33 | Android 13 | Q3 2022 |
What is the API Level?
API Level is an integer value that uniquely identifies the framework API revision offered by a version of the Android platform.
Android vs iOS market share
Android dominates in global market share, responsible for 71 percent of all smartphone usage in Q1 2021. Android has been falling slightly in market share in the past two years, as Apple’s iPhone 11 and 12 were both well received by customers.
