Direct Buy

The term “Android” has its origin in the Greek word andr-, meaning “man or male” and the suffix -eides, used to mean “alike or of the species”. This together means as much as “being human”. Andorid is a software stack for mobile devices which means a reference to a set of system programs or a set of application programs that form a complete system. This software platform provides a foundation for applications just like a real working platform.

The software stack is divided in four different layers, which include 5 different groups:
The application layer
The Android software platform will come with a set of basic applications like browser, email client, SMS program, maps, calendar, contacts and many more. All these applications are written using the Java programming language. It should be mentioned that applications can be run simultaneously, it is possible to hear music and read an email at the same time. This layer will mostly be used by commonly cell phone users.
The application framework
An application framework is a software framework that is used to implement a standard structure of an application for a specific operating system. With the help of managers, content providers and other services programmers it can reassemble functions used by other existing applications.

The libraries
The available libraries are all written in C/C++. They will be called through a Java interface. These includes the Surface Manager (for compositing windows), 2D and 3D graphics, Media Codecs like MPEG-4 and MP3, the SQL database SQLite and the web browser engine WebKit.
The runtime
The Android runtime consists of two components. First a set of core libraries which provides most of the functionality available in the core libraries of the Java programming language. Second the virtual machine Dalvik which operates like a translator between the application side and the operating system. Every application which runs on Android is written in Java. As the operating system is not able to understand this programming language directly, the Java programs will be received and translated by the virtual
machine Dalvik. The translated code can then be executed by the operating system. A very important notice is that applications will be encapsulated in Dalvik. For every program an own virtual machine is available even if some programs are running parallel. The advantage is that the different programs do not affect each other, so a program error for example can lead to a crash of the program but not of the whole system.
The kernel
The Linux Kernel will be used by Android for its device drivers, memory management, process management and networking.