What is Android?

Android Brief Introduction

Android is an operating system for mobile devices such as cellular phones, tablet computers and netbooks. Android is developed by Google and based upon the Linux kernel and GNU software. It was initially developed by Android Inc. (a firm later purchased by Google) and lately broadened to the Open Handset Alliance. According to NPD Group, unit sales for Android OS smartphones ranked first among all smartphone OS handsets sold worldwide, and Apple's iOS is the second largest.

Related Mobile Terms: iPhone | iPad

Android History - Early acquisition by Google

In July 2005, Google acquired Android, Inc., a small startup company based in Palo Alto, California, USA. Android's co-founders who went to work at Google included Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner(co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.), Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV).

Android Market

Like many phone-based application stores, the Android Market is a catalog of applications that can be downloaded and installed to target hardware over-the-air, without the use of a PC. Originally only free applications were supported. Paid-for applications have been available on the Android Market in the United States since 19 February 2009. The Android Market has been expanding rapidly. As of July 2013, more than one million applications available for Android in Play Store meanwhile a large number of Android applications are included in existing third-party application marketplaces to ship more tools which are not allowed in Google Play.

Android Media Support

Android supports the following audio/video/still media formats: H.263, H.264 3GP or MP4 container), MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB (in 3GP container), AAC, HE-AAC (in MP4 or 3GP container), MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP.

>> For detailed information of Android media specs, please check "File Formats for Android"...

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