Detailed analysis on Android mobile phone software

Since the launch of Google's Android mobile phone software platform, the standardization and low price of mobile phone software have received more attention than in the past. Does Android have the ability to break the door view of mobile phone software for many years, it is for everyone to learn and think about.

Google published a software platform named Android, breaking previous speculation that Google will post its own mobile phone in the name of gPhone, and all the information and network industry are highly concerned about it, after Android is published, it will bring new waves to the mobile phone market.

Too many people have observed and analyzed the intentions and Strategies of Android mobile phone software. Android expects the mobile phone software architecture to be standardized and low-price, which will help implement Google's software and network services. Therefore, this article will not discuss strategies and impacts, but will fully understand Android from the technical perspective.

Strictly speaking, Android belongs to the Information Technology (IT) field. IT is also a software Technology and software engineering in the IT field, and has a distance from electronic engineering (EE, however, in addition to hardware design, mobile phones cannot avoid software design. Therefore, it is still necessary to research and analyze mobile phones.

Android is a Software Stack, or "Software Stack architecture". It is divided into three layers: Operating System and intermediary Software (Middleware, called Middleware in the Chinese mainland) and applications. If you learn more, the operating system uses embedded Linux, and the application only provides several commonly used applications, it is impossible to develop applications of various colors in the name of Android.

Otherwise, the intention of "attracting a wide range of software vendors and programmers to develop apps that support Android platforms" will be lost. To develop applications that can be executed on the Android platform, you must use the Java programming language.

The next step is the intermediary Android mobile phone software. Anything between the operating system and the application is mostly called the intermediary software. The Android intermediary software can be subdivided into two layers, and the underlying layer is the Library) and Virtual Machine (VM). The upper layer is the Application Framework ).

Features:

The architecture is a bone, and the features shown are flesh-and-blood. Although Android is just getting started, it has the following features:

◆ Application framework-various basic software components are available in the framework. Applications can call the efficacy services of these components directly to save the development effort and time of applications, at the same time, the reuse and portability of programs are also high.

◆ Dalvik Virtual Machine-Android uses a unique Dalvik Virtual Machine instead of a standard Java Virtual Machine (JVM.

◆ Integrated (Web) browsers-Web browsers are called "Main and common applications". Android built-in browsers are developed based on the Web kit browser engine, webKit is an open source code project. Many browsers are also developed using the WebKit engine, such as Safari of Apple and Web Browser for S60 of Nokia S60.

◆ Optimal drawing capabilities-drawing is divided into 2D and 3D. for 2D, Android uses a unique library, while 3D uses OpenGL ES 1.0 (OpenGL for Embedded Systems) standard library.

◆ SQLite database-SQLite is an open source relational database. It features lightweight (about KB) and is suitable for handheld devices, in addition, desktop computing applications are also used. For example, OpenOffice.org 2.0 has built-in SQLite.

◆ Media support capabilities-Android supports a variety of audio, static video, dynamic video formats, such as MPEG-4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF and so on.

◆ GSM call capability-the call capability of a GSM mobile phone must be implemented at the hardware circuit level and cannot be implemented at the software level, but the GSM call capability is required on the Android platform, this function is characterized by a minimum specification of hardware requirements rather than a feature.

◆ Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and Wi-Fi communication capabilities belong to the same functional requirements of the hardware layer.

◆ Cameras (Camera), GPS positioning, compass, and accelerometer-these functions also belong to the hardware level. Android mainly provides support at the software level, such as the hardware abstraction layer and application interface.

◆ Rich development environment-the Android platform emphasizes that a complete program development environment is available. Its development environment includes the device simulator (Emulator), debugging tools, program execution consumption memory, performance and other evaluation functions, there is also a Plug-in for Eclipse IDE (Plug-in ).