Netizen

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Android Architecture

Image by dannysullivan via Flickr

Just take a look.

All your stuff is saved. Contacts you add on your Android phone are automatically saved in your Gmail account that you are used to accessing over your laptop. So you can lose that mobile phone and not lose anything. Get a new phone, sign in, pick up where you last left.
You can take your photos and videos from your mobile device straight to your online destinations, in Google's case Picassa and YouTube. You don't have to download them to your desktop and then upload them online. That right there is further liberation from the desktop. And of course the editing happens online.

Many human beings come with a pair of legs. We move around. A lot. The mobile space was always very important. Technology is catching up. But it would have been a minor disaster to realize the mobile space was a whole different silo from the big rectangle of your laptop.

That seamlessness from the mobile space to, what will we call it, the immobile space is key. It has to feel like one continuum. When mobile and not so mobile, we are still dealing with the same ecosystem of information and people.

The Android architecture has that seamlessness in mind. That seamlessness is at the heart of the Android vision. That is also why the architecture is open. You have the Open Handset Alliance. Android is open source. It is free. Just like Google search is free. The business model perhaps is to create a vibrant mobile space, get people to start using the basic services like Gmail and calendar, and then cash in in the mobile ad space which promises to be huge measured by any yardstick.

On The Web

HowStuffWorks "Google Android Architecture" the Android OS as a software stack. Each layer of the stack groups together several programs that support specific operating system functions. ..... the kernel ..... memory management programs, security settings, power management software and several hardware drivers. ...... libraries. ...... the media framework library supports playback and recording of various audio, video and picture formats .... runtime layer includes a set of core Java libraries -- Android application programmers build their apps using the Java programming language. ....... A virtual machine is a software application that behaves as if it were an independent device with its own operating system. ..... The Android OS uses virtual machines to run each application as its own process. ...... no application is dependent upon another. .. if an application crashes, it shouldn't affect any other applications running on the device. ..... simplifies memory management. ........... the application framework. ....... programs that manage the phone's basic functions like resource allocation, telephone applications, switching between processes or programs and keeping track of the phone's physical location. ...... Think of the application framework as a set of basic tools with which a developer can build much more complex tools. ........ the applications ...... the user interface.
Android The Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.
Android Architecture
Ideas 2.0: Google's Android Architecture
Code Beach: Android Architecture Overview
Google Android Architecture Overview : iPhone Killer
Curiosity is bliss: Google Android architecture
Android Architecture Overview (Android forum at JavaRanch)
Android An Open Platform For Mobile Devices
HyperFuture » Blog Archive » Android architecture video - Part 1 of 3

Android Netbook

Android revolutionizing the mobile space and then sturdily moving into the Netbook space is kind of like Gmail coming offline into the Outlook space. The lines are blurring. The competition is heating up.

The Netbook space is not a subset of the PC space. While the PC space seems to have stagnated, the Netbook space has seen some action. The Netbook is half way between the PC and what I call the IC, Internet Computer.

The beauty of a free, functional operating system is it brings the price down, and so you have Dell running up and down the street.

Will Microsoft counter with a stripped down version of Windows, one that might go for $10? Since we know they don't do free.

If all the operating system needs to run is a browser, how much stuff do you need, really?

On The Web

Skytone Alpha 680 Android-powered netbook spotted | Google Android ... Chinese manufacturer Skytone. ...... The Alpha 680 is expected to retail for around $250 and be available sometime in Q3 2009. ....... nice to see what appears to be progress on the Android netbook front.
Android Set for Netbook Leap? sees Android making the jump off of smartphones and into the netbook arena in the near future ..... Android taking between 10% and 15% of the netbook market within two years ..... Netbooks and laptops are a big growth area; they have higher growth potential than smartphones even ..... certainly within Android’s best interests to find its way onto as many devices as possible ...... In time, it will be interesting to see how many different gadgets are hosting Google's operating system
Freescale Android Netbook for $199, Coming Soon? | Android Central a summer 2009 availability and a price point of around $199.
ASUS coming up with a Google Android netbook? | GadgetMix.com!::.. ASUS has already allocated a team of engineers to work upon an Android-based netbook and they will able to fully develop the Android-based netbook by the end of this year. It will be interesting to see the place for such a netbook, where 90% of the netbook market is using the old and trusty Windows XP as their OS. One reason that folks at ASUS may be looking upto the Android platform is the fact that it is free. ...... there are plenty of linux custom distros which offer full firefox even in the instant-on OS.
Android Netbooks Tested By Google | Android Phone Fans They were even testing out Android on a netbook… LAST YEAR! ...... back in the day somebody had almost got Android running on a mini PC - this was a year ago or more ..... I wouldn’t discount the possibility of seeing a gBook of sorts that comes with all Google products. That means based on Android, Chrome Browser, Google Gears for using Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, Google Reader and all down the line. ....... who wouldn’t want a super cheap netbook running Android?
Dell Demonstrates Android-powered Mini 10v Netbook - Laptop News ... We've heard that many netbook manufacturers are planning to put Android on their netbooks, but Dell has gone a step further and proved that it's testing "something called Android." ..... three Mini 10vs running Dell's vanilla Ubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix and, most interestingly, Android's Cupcake build. ...... Who doesn't want a "very nice, little, very small and very snappy little operating environment," which "actually runs very nicely," after all?

A sneak peak into Alpha 680, one of the first Android netbook ... Jan 2, 2009 Thought Android was just for mobile phones? Think again. Matthäus Krzykowski and Daniel Hartmann needed only four hours to compile Android for the Asus EEEPC 1000H netbook. .... The netbook market is one that Microsoft has not completely gotten seized, since most netbooks don't have the hardware to handle Windows Vista. .... leaves enough room for Google's Chrome and Android to make some noise ..... Google and Intel are already in cahoots in bringing Android to a netbook platform.
Android Netbooks on the Horizon? | Mobile Technology ...
The Coming Android Invasion the Linux-based Android could pose a real threat to Windows XP, which runs on the majority of netbooks, and to the forthcoming Windows 7

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Friday, May 22, 2009

The Android Architecture

Android Netbook