Android applications are going on becoming more and more popular just because of its characteristics such as reliability and toughness. In the market one will find many mobile phones with Android platform. One of the major reasons for this is that the Android is open source and having accesses to it and using it is very easy. It has now become necessary to consider the users of Android based smart phones as a different market segment. This market segment is going to try to access the internet through the Android based smart phones that they have. This insinuates that the websites need to be compatible with the Android platform. This has increases the demand of Android applications.

Android is a group of software programs that are especially meant for the mobile devices. It constitutes of an operating system (OS), key applications and the middleware. The apparatus and APIs needed to start the application development on the Android are provided by the Android SDK. The Android SDK also has a QEMU based handset emulator, sample code, tutorials and documentation. The Java programming language has to be used for developing the Android applications.

The features of the Android are responsible for its popularity. The integrated browser is based on WebKit engine, which is an open source. The application framework enables the replacement and reuse of the components. The 3D graphics count on the specification of Open GL ES 1.0. In this the hardware acceleration is optional. Support of media such as common video, audio and images is extended in different formats such as H.264, MPEG4, AMR, MP3, PNG, AAC, JPG, and GIF. The environment of Android application development includes the debugging tools, device emulator, performance profiling, memory, and Eclipse IDE plugin. For the mobile phones the Dalvik virtual machine has been optimized. For functions such as management of low level memory and threading, the Dalvik virtual machine is dependent on the Linux Kernel. The graphics are optimized with the help of a customized library of 2D graphics. The SQLite is used for storing the data in a structured way. This list includes the hard ware dependent features like GSM telephone system, Wi-Fi, EDGE, Bluetooth, 3G, accelerometer, GPS, Camera and compass.

Android being an open source the application developers have a freedom to use the access location information, device hardware, run the background services, add to the status bar notifications and set alarms. The list of benefit is not going to stop at least till the community of developers stop contributing to its development.

Android is an open source and because of this it is very much possible that the application developed may be similar to that of others. A successful Android application needs to be customized to be unique. For a unique Android application developed one needs to hire the services of a professional and technically adept android application development service provider.

Source : EzineArticles