Mobile Operation Systems - Android

Mobile Operation Systems - Android

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Mobile phone technology has seen rapid transformation in its use, look, design, and services. Most of the support to the technology is provided by operating system which is specially designed for mobile phones. 

From year 2003, there have been extensive changes in the design and support provided by operating systems. The purpose of this article is to explain the main operating systems which are in extensive use at present. I will focus on the basic concepts of Android in this article. You can read about IOS and windows 8 operating systems here.

Introduction

With the advent of mobile phone technology, world’s geographical boundaries are shrinking. 

With advancements in the technology and competitive market, cost of usage is diminishing. This is resulting in increase of number of users of mobile phones. Now-a-day, these devices are not just for making the phone calls but are used as a multipurpose device. They have changed the way- of our life and now become an essential tool in our day-to-day life. Phones are used for many  purposes like clicking pictures, making videos, playing music, browsing, chatting, etc. 

For the provision of various facilities and for the support for various applications, various types of operating systems are required.

Android Operating System 

Various types of operating systems are in use to provide various services on mobile phones. One of such operating system which is in extensive use is Android operating system. It is an open source and Linux-based operating system. It is not only an operating system but also comprises of many applications. 

Android Inc. was found in Palo Alto of California, U.S. by Andy Rubin, Rich miner, Nicksear@d Chris White in 2003. Later Android Inc. was acquired by Google in 2005. 15.1.1 Various Versions of Android

From original release of it there have been various updates in the original version of Android. 

 Architecture of Android Operating System

The Android comprises of different layers. Each layer consists of a group of many program components. In all, it includes operating system, middleware and important applications. In Android architecture, each layer provides services and support to the layer. There are four layers in the android operating system. Below are the layes and their corresponding services.

Layer 1- Linux Kernel

The very first layer in the architecture is the Linux kernel. The Android OS is built on top of the Linux 2.6 Kernel. Linux kernel interacts with the hardware. It comprises of all the required hardware drivers. The programs which control and
communicate with the hardware are called drivers.

For example, to use Bluetooth service, the device should have Bluetooth hardware in it. Hence the kernel must have a Bluetooth driver which can communicate with the Bluetooth hardware. The Linux kernel also acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and to the software layers. This kemel consists of various essential drivers
for keypad, display, power management, audio, video, camera, etc.

 Layer 2- Libraries and Runtime 

The second layer in the Architecture is of libraries and runtime. This layer helps the device to handle different types of data. C or C++ language is used to write the code for various libraries. These are specific for a particular hardware. Some of the important libraries are:

Surface Manager: It is used for compositing window manager with off-screen buffering. Off-screen buffering means in place of drawing directly into the semen, the drawings go to the off-screen buffer. There it is combined with other drawings and form the final screen the user will see. 

Media framework: Media framework provides different media codes which helps in recording and playback of different media formats.

SQLite: SQLite is the database engine which is used for data storage purposes.

WebKit: It is the browser engine used to display HTML content.

OpenGL: It is used to provide Two-Dimensional (ZD) or Three Dimensional(3D) graphics content to the screen. 

Android Runtime

Android runtime consists of Dalvik Virtual machine and Core Java libraries.

Dalvik Virtual Machine: It is a type of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) which is used to run applications in Android-based devices. It is optimized for low processing power and low memory environments. 

Core Java Libraries: These libraries provide the functionalities of Java Standard Edition (SE) libraries. 

 Layer 3 - Application Framework. 

The layer 3 is of application framework. It consists of blocks with which applications directly interact. These blocks are actually programs. They manage the basic functions of mobile phone like resource management, voice call management. etc. 

Vital Block:

Activity Manager: It manages the activity life cycle of applications.

Content Providers: It helps in the data sharing between applications.

Telephony Manager: It manages all voice calls.

Location Manager: It helps in location management, by using Global Positioning System (GPS) or cell tower.

Resource Manager: It manages various types of resources which are used in various applications.

Layer 4- Applications

The top layer in the Android architecture is of Applications. In this layer all the applications are present. Various standard applications come pre-installed with every mobile phone, for example:
Short Message Service (SMS), Dialer, Web browser,  Contact manager, Whatsapp

In Conclusion, let consider some  features in the systems. Android is giving its competitor a very tough time. Whenever you have android then you are likely to see the following;

• Beautiful User Interface
• Connectivity (GSM CDMS, UMTS, WiFi, LTE, NFC, Bluetooth and WiMAX)
• Storage - based on SQLITE
• Media Support
• Messaging
• Web Browser
• Multi tasking
• Multi Language
• GCM