An Android in Every Home - Beginning Android Games - page 6

ï?® Dalvik virtual machine , which is responsible for running applications on
Android.

The

ï?® A set of graphics libraries for 2D and 3D programming.

ï?® Media support for common audio, video, and image formats, such as Ogg
Vorbis, MP3, MPEG-4, H.264, and PNG. There's even a specialized API
for playing back sound effects, which will come in handy in your game
development adventures.

ï?® APIs for accessing peripherals such as the camera, Global Positioning
System (GPS), compass, accelerometer, touchscreen, trackball, keyboard,
controller, and joystick. Note that not all Android devices have all these
peripherals—hardware fragmentation in action.

Of course, there's a lot more to Android than the few features just mentioned. But, for your game
development needs, these features are the most relevant.

Android's architecture is composed of stacked groups of components, and each layer builds
on the components in the layer below it. Figure 1-1 gives an overview of Android's major
components.

Figure 1-1. Android architecture overview