Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Android
Android is a Linux-based operating system designed to run on touch-screen mobile
devices, mainly smartphones and tablets.
Released around 2007, Android was initially developed by the Android Corporation.
It was then acquired by Google, who founded a consortium of hardware, software,
and telecommunication companies, named the Open Handset, to further support and
develop this open source project.
Today, Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices all over the world.
Numbers say that new Android phones are activated at the rate of one million per
day!
The main factor that made Android a favorite for consumers is its open source ap-
proach. It can count on an enthusiastic community of passionate developers and
hundreds of hardware, software, and carrier partners whose support make Android
the fastest growing mobile operating system to date.
With such partners, Android is capable of continuously pushing the boundaries of
mobile hardware and software forward, allowing developers to build any kind of ap-
plications that can take advantage of the latest mobile technologies, and to support
users with many differentiated and powerful applications to expand the capabilities
of their mobile devices.
The main drawback with Android is that, due to the high variety in the hardware it
runs on, updates tend to be quite slow in reaching devices when compared to iOS.
Porting Android to specific hardware is a time and resource consuming activity for
manufacturers, with the result that newest devices are prioritized, leaving older ones
behind.
On the other hand, the large community of Android enthusiasts can balance this bi-
as, building and distributing their own modified versions of the OS with new features
and updates, faster than the official manufacturers.
Android gives its developers a wide range of tools to take full advantage of the
hardware capabilities of each device, both smartphones and tablets. For example,
it allows having a user interface that automatically adapts to look its best on each
