Android Setup

Android Environment Setup

You will be glad to know that you can start your Android application development on either of the following operating systems −

• Microsoft Windows XP or later version.
• Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later version with Intel chip.
• Linux including GNU C Library 2.7 or later.

Second point is that all the required tools to develop Android applications are freely available and can be downloaded from the Web. Following is the list of software's you will need before you start your Android application programming.

• Java JDK5 or later version
• Android Studio

Here last two components are optional and if you are working on Windows machine then these components make your life easy while doing Java based application development. So let us have a look how to proceed to set required environment.

Set-up Java Development Kit (JDK)

You can download the latest version of Java JDK from Oracle's Java site − Java SE Downloads. You will find instructions for installing JDK in downloaded files, follow the given instructions to install and configure the setup. Finally set PATH and JAVA_HOME environment variables to refer to the directory that contains java and javac, typically java_install_dir/bin and java_install_dir respectively.

If you are running Windows and installed the JDK in C:\jdk1.8.0_102, you would have to put the following line in your C:\autoexec.bat file.

set PATH=C:\jdk1.8.0_102\bin;%PATH%
set JAVA_HOME=C:\jdk1.8.0_102

Alternatively, you could also right-click on My Computer, select Properties, then Advanced, then Environment Variables. Then, you would update the PATH value and press the OK button.

On Linux, if the SDK is installed in /usr/local/jdk1.8.0_102 and you use the C shell, you would put the following code into your .cshrc file.

setenv PATH /usr/local/jdk1.8.0_102/bin:$PATH
setenv JAVA_HOME /usr/local/jdk1.8.0_102

Alternatively, if you use Android studio, then it will know automatically where you have installed your Java.

Android IDEs

There are so many sophisticated Technologies are available to develop android applications, the familiar technologies, which are predominantly using tools as follows

• Android Studio
• Eclipse IDE(Deprecated)

Android-Overview

What is Android?

Android is an open source and Linux-based Operating System for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Android was developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google, and other companies.

Android offers a unified approach to application development for mobile devices which means developers need only develop for Android, and their applications should be able to run on different devices powered by Android.

The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was released by Google in 2007 where as the first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.

On June 27, 2012, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced the next Android version, 4.1 Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean is an incremental update, with the primary aim of improving the user interface, both in terms of functionality and performance.

The source code for Android is available under free and open source software licenses. Google publishes most of the code under the Apache License version 2.0 and the rest, Linux kernel changes, under the GNU General Public License version 2.

As an Android developer, you can deploy devices and apps to employees and keep your corporate data secure. With Android, organizations can choose what devices, APIs, and framework they want to use to develop apps for enterprises.

With Android, you can:

• Build apps to help employees be more productive when using their personal devices or the organization's devices dedicated to a specific task.
• Connect with leading enterprise mobility management (EMM) partners to help integrate Android in your business.

Why Android?

Features of Android

After learning what is android, let's see the features of android. The important features of android are given below:

• It is open-source.
• Anyone can customize the Android Platform.
• There are a lot of mobile applications that can be chosen by the consumer.
• It provides many interesting features like weather details, opening screen, live RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds etc.

It provides support for messaging services(SMS and MMS), web browser, storage (SQLite), connectivity (GSM, CDMA, Blue Tooth, Wi-Fi etc.), media, handset layout etc.

Categories of Android applications

There are many android applications in the market. The top categories are −