Android Application Programming Overview

Hello Guys,
Welcome to my first tutorial on android application programming. First lets see a quick overview of android itself, then we'll move on to necessary environmental setup. So without wasting our time lets dig in it, here we go:

What is Android?

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, Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance: a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. The first publicly available smartphone running Android, the HTC Dream, was released on October 22, 2008.

It is world's most popular mobile OS:
Android powers more than a billion phones and tablets around the world. It’s customizable, yet easy to use, and since it's made by Google, it works seamlessly with all your favorite Google apps.

Open Source:

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 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:

Following is a list of features in the Android operating system:

Android Applications:

Android has a growing selection of third party applications, which can be acquired by users either through an app store such as Google Play or theAmazon Appstore, or by downloading and installing

the application's APK file from a third-party site.
The Play Store application allows users to browse, download and update apps published by Google and third-party developers, and is pre-installed on devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements. The app filters the list of available applications to those that are compatible with the user's device, and developers may restrict their applications to particular carriers or countries for business reasons. Purchases of unwanted applications can be refunded within 15 minutes of the time of download, and some carriers offer direct carrier billing for Google Play application purchases, where the cost of the application is added to the user's monthly bill. As of July 2013, there are more than one million applications available for Android in the Play Store.

So guys this is my very first post on Android Application Programming and Overview of Android OS.

This tutorial has been written with an aim to teach you how to develop and package Android application. I'll start from environment setup for Android application programming and we will also see How to configure Eclips IDE for the same.
#All Stats mentioned in this post are taken from Wikipedia. They are subjected to changes as android technology is growing very fast.