An Android in Every Home - Beginning Android Games - page 2

A Brief History of Android
Android was first seen publicly in 2005, when Google acquired a small startup called Android
Inc. This fueled speculation that Google was interested in entering the mobile device space. In
2008, the release of version 1.0 of Android put an end to all speculation, and Android went on to
become the new challenger on the mobile market. Since then, Android has been battling it out
with already-established platforms, such as iOS (then called iPhone OS), BlackBerry OS, and
Windows Phone 7. Android's growth has been phenomenal, as it has captured more and more
market share every year. While the future of mobile technology is always changing, one thing is
certain: Android is here to stay.
Because Android is open source, there is a low barrier of entry for handset manufacturers using
the new platform. They can produce devices for all price segments, modifying Android itself
to accommodate the processing power of a specific device. Android is therefore not limited to
high-end devices, but can also be deployed in low-cost devices, thus reaching a wider audience.
A crucial ingredient for Android's success was the formation of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) in
late 2007. The OHA includes companies such as HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola, and NVIDIA, which all
collaborate to develop open standards for mobile devices. Although Android's code is developed
primarily by Google, all the OHA members contribute to its source code in one form or another.
Android itself is a mobile operating system and platform based on the Linux kernel versions 2.6
and 3.x, and it is freely available for commercial and noncommercial use. Many members of the
OHA build custom versions of Android with modified user interfaces (UIs) for their devices, such
as HTC's Sense and Motorola's MOTOBLUR. The open source nature of Android also enables
hobbyists to create and distribute their own versions. These are usually called mods , firmware, ,
or roms . The most prominent rom at the time of this writing is developed by Steve Kondik, also
known as Cyanogen, and many contributors. It aims to bring the newest and best improvements
to all sorts of Android devices and breathe fresh air into otherwise abandoned or old devices.
Since its release in 2008, Android has received many major version updates, all code-named
after desserts (with the exception of Android 1.1, which is irrelevant nowadays). Most versions
of the Android platform have added new functionality, usually in the form of application
programming interfaces (APIs) or new development tools, that is relevant, in one way or another,
for game developers:
ï?® Version 1.5 (Cupcake) : Added support for including native libraries in
Android applications, which were previously restricted to being written
in pure Java. Native code can be very beneficial in situations where
performance is of utmost concern.
ï?® Version 1.6 (Donut) : Introduced support for different screen resolutions. We
will revisit that development a couple of times in this topic because it has
some impact on how we approach writing games for Android.
� Version 2.0 (Éclair) : Added support for multitouch screens.
ï?® Version 2.2 (Froyo) : Added just-in-time (JIT) compilation to the Dalvik virtual
machine (VM), the software that powers all the Java applications on Android.
JIT speeds up the execution of Android applications considerably—
depending on the scenario, up to a factor of five.