Introduction to Android
Android is the most used operating system in today's world. Over 3 billion devices are running on android. Today android is used in phones, tablets, tv, smartwatches etc. So a question arises what is android.
What is Android?
Android isn’t a phone or an application, but an operating system based on the Linux Kernal. No clue what that is? In its most simple definition, Linux is an operating system most commonly found on servers and desktop computers. Android isn’t just a version of Linux, due to the many changes found under the hood, but it’s related.
Android is an operating system designed with mobile in mind, the place where your phone’s functions and applications live. Everything you see on the display of your device is a part of the operating system. When you get a call, text message, or email, the OS processes that information and puts it in a readable format.
The Android OS is divided into various version numbers, implying significant jumps in features, operation, and stability, which usually have codenames. So, if you hear someone say Android Marshmallow, Nougat, Oreo, Pie, or the latest Android 11, that is just the name of the version of Android you might have on your device. Modern smartphones and tablets released this year mostly run Android 10 or the latest Android 11.
A lot of us have heard of google play store has anyone thought about what is it? It is a market place that has apps to download and use. It has over 2.7 million apps and more been created each day. All this application present on the play store can run only on the android application. This year there were 750 million downloads of the android app last year. Do you know develop this apps?
Who Develops these apps?
People who develop an android app are called Android App Developer. A person who has good knowledge of Java, Kotlin and Android can develop android apps.
Components of Android apps?
Every application or app has to part to it. firstly it has a front end that is what we see on the screen it is also known as UI and secondly, it has a back end which is the logic of the app. This is used to add functionality to the app. Both this part is needed to to be programmed using a Programming language. The Front end is coded using XML and the backend is coded using Java/Kotlin/C++.
Languages used to develop Android Apps?
XML and Java
What is XML?
XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. It is a metalanguage which allows user to define their own customised marked languages, especially in order to display documents on the Internet. It is a language that consists of Tags which store some information. These tags can be used to present data on the screen.
What is Java?
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!
Tools used to build android apps:
Android Sudio
Software Development Kit(SDK)
Android Studio is an environment that helps us create and edit android apps.
Android studio is the official Integrated Development Environment(IDE) for Android app development. It has Intellij’s powerful code editor and developer tools, and various other features that enhance productivity while developing Andriod apps.
What is IDE?
IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. It is a software application that consists of many tools like editor, compiler, package manager, automatic tools and debugger.
Android SDK is a software development kit developed by Google for the Android platform. The Android SDK allows you to create Android apps, and you don’t need to be an expert to use it.
Android SDK comes bundled with Android Studio, Google’s official integrated development environment (IDE) for the Android operating system.
That's all for today we will be looking at more things in the next blog.
Happy Reading!!!