There are many Android-based devices. Many buyers, purchasing modern mobile phones and tablets, do not understand what Android is and what it is for. Read on to find out about the benefits of the operating system and the main aspects of initial setup. Having learned how to work on one Android gadget, you can easily deal with any other.
Android is a free operating system that powers smartphones, tablets, game consoles, wristwatches, televisions, multimedia players, e-books, and Google glasses. Often, manufacturers of modern devices change standard OS elements with proprietary applications, group menu items differently and formulate their names. However, the essence of the system operation in most proprietary shells is identical.
A variety of applications will provide additional options for the user and replace the basic functionality. To this day, regular updates are carried out that greatly enhance user experience, productivity and economy. The latest version of the OS was developed in 2017 and is called Android 8.0 Oreo. Android is a modern platform that allows you to transform your smartphone and tablet into a real pocket computer. In addition, the Android OS is easy to manage.
When you start your smartphone or tablet for the first time, you need to configure the options for their full use. When the user turns on Android, the initial setup wizard will appear on the screen. Thus, you can get rid of unnecessary search for options in the device menu.
Initially, the system will prompt the user to select the interface language, as well as connect to a Wi-Fi network or a mobile operator. Each device can have a different number of languages. Ukrainian, Russian and English languages are necessarily present in European models of Android devices.
Modern Android devices provide for the use of the Internet. You can use the basic functionality of a smartphone without it. If there is no WiFi nearby, you can use the mobile Internet. Each mobile operator has its own tariffs, which differ in cost and parameters. However, access to useful options and interesting features will be difficult.
When you turn on your mobile phone for the first time, it is not recommended to insert a SIM card, since the OS is set to use mobile data by default. These actions will help you avoid unnecessary traffic usage. Having made the choice of the required menu language, press the "Next" button to proceed to the next stage of the settings.
Then you have to link the device you are using to your Google account. These steps can be skipped and performed a little later. However, it is recommended to do this right away, because this way you can download the necessary applications, use the e-mail box, the application store and other useful services of the company online without unnecessary actions. The user can use an existing account. If there is none, then to register with Google, click the "No" button, then on "Create an account".
The created account remains with the user forever, as well as previously purchased applications and some settings. Even if you want to change your old smartphone to a new one. It is worth noting that the user will have 16 Gb of "cloud space" at his disposal, which will allow setting up synchronization with Google cloud storage. After logging into your account, the system will ask you a few questions about setting up your smartphone. In order to never lose contacts, you must confirm your consent to back up your data.
At the next stage, you will need to enter the last name and first name of the user in an empty field. It is not necessary to prescribe real data, you can come up with it. This information can be changed over time. You do not have to worry about the confidentiality of your personal data. Google guarantees a high level of protection of the personal information of its customers.
Next, you need to specify your email. After registration, it will not be possible to change it. Then fill in the field with password and login. We strongly recommend that you write them down or memorize them. The user will be prompted to configure the password recovery procedure. In this case, you will need to enter a mobile phone number.
The user must confirm his consent to access information about his location. There are several options here: disable or enable the option, enable location search via GPS or network coordinates. User location data is not shared with third parties. They may be required for some applications.
The system will ask you if you agree with Google's policies. Click the "Accept" button. Then enter the captcha. An additional option is provided to link VISA, Paypal and other cards to your account. This option is convenient when purchasing games, music and programs from the application store.
At the end of the setup procedure, you will need to enter the time zone, date and current time. If you plan to use Google Maps in the future, then leave a mark in the appropriate paragraph.
As you can see, there is nothing complicated, now you can use the device to its fullest. The initial setup is complete.
There are several ways to transfer contacts from one Android device to another. The easiest way is to sync with Google. If you are not the first smartphone with Android OS, then all records can be saved in the Google cloud. This is possible if the user has not disabled contact synchronization on the old device.
You can check if the contacts have been saved as follows:
Another way is to use a vcf file. The user will need to export the data to a file. This requires:
Using the Bluetooth option. To do this, activate this option on the new and old smartphones. Then turn on device discovery as it is disabled on some devices. Go to "Settings", then "Bluetooth". Check the box next to "Visible to all" on both devices. Then we turn on the device search on one. In the list that opens, select what you need and click to connect and transfer data. Go to the phone book settings. We select the section "Mark all" or "Mark several". Then we press "Send". On the other device, click "Accept".
You can first transfer contacts to a memory card, then insert it into a tablet or smartphone. Many users prefer to transfer contacts from Sim card. The only drawback of this method is the limited number of contacts for storage. It is suitable for those users who have no more than 220 numbers in the list of numbers. For this, it is necessary that all contacts be saved on it.
Go to the phone book application. Select the option "Export / Import", then "Export". The copy path is defined as “Sim-card”. We insert the card with numbers into the new device and transfer it. We go into the phone book. Click on the button in the upper right corner. We select the option "Import from Sim-card".
Another way is to transfer contacts from your computer using a USB cable. To do this, we connect the old device to a PC and a cable. We transfer the vcf file with phone numbers to the computer. Then, in the same way, we connect a new smartphone or tablet and transfer data from a PC to it.
Let's move on to the mail settings. If the user does not plan to use e-mail via a smartphone, this step can be skipped. When a Gmail email account is used, it will be automatically configured after entering your Google account login and password. In the event that the e-mail is located on another resource, it will have to be configured manually. To do this, follow these steps:
If the e-mail box is located on one of the popular mail servers, the system will try to independently determine the rest of the settings and establish a connection. Otherwise, to enter the server names and other settings, press the "Manual" button and enter the required data of the mail service.
When working with a smartphone, you often need to use a keyboard. In order to call the keyboard on Android, just click on the window for writing text. To remove it, click on the "Back" button. The procedure for entering text is similar to typing on a PC. Press the globe button to change the input language. In the keyboard settings, you can set the switch to three frequently used languages. A new sentence in automatic mode starts with a capital letter.
To start the word with a capital letter, click on the up arrow. To enter several capital letters in a row, hold down the button for two seconds. To delete text or a word, use the button in the form of a square with a cross in the middle. In addition to the main keyboard, there are several additional ones with icons and emoticons. To switch between them, click the button located in the lower corner. In the process of typing, word suggestions will be displayed on the screen. If you select one of them, the letters will be converted into ready-made words.
To save time typing, you can copy the word and paste it into the text. To highlight the desired word, tap and hold on it for a few seconds. Drag the handles around the edges of the copy to enlarge the copy border. A panel with the functions "Copy", "Cut" and "Paste" will appear at the top of the keyboard.
To connect to a new network via Wi-Fi, go to the device settings, then to the "Wi-Fi" section. A list of currently available networks will appear. A padlock next to the Wi-Fi icon means that the entrance to this network is password protected. If you enter the password once, then the Android device reconnects to such a network automatically; you will not need to enter the password again.
In some cases, the required network may not appear in the list of available ones. The administrator of any network can make it closed (invisible) to other users. To connect to it, press the "Menu" button in the upper corner of the phone screen, then "Add network". Using the "Menu" button, you can also go to additional network settings: network operation in sleep mode and enable notifications about available and open networks.
The interface of an Android device depends on the version of the operating system and on the proprietary shell installed by the manufacturer. However, the operating logic of the OS remains unchanged.
Controlling a device based on the Android OS is based on gestures. The main ones include:
There may be several desktops on an Android device. Scrolling through them is carried out using a swipe from left to right and vice versa. The dock bar icons are located at the bottom of the screen. As a rule, there is a phone book icon, a browser and a program for creating SMS messages. The center button is used to call up a menu with all installed programs.
It is located at the top of the Android device screen. It displays information about the current time, battery charge, and active notifications. Some users call it a "curtain". To open it, you need to swipe from top to bottom. The status bar provides access to the main switches: mobile data, geodata, energy saving, sound, book screen, airplane mode, flashlight, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
The device's desktop contains application icons and widgets. The latter allow you to display the necessary information on the screen, which does not require restarting the program. During the existence of the Android OS, widgets for various purposes have been released. These include a clock widget, weather, notes, purchases, and more. Most are capable of running on any firmware. However, there are widgets that cannot be installed on another OS.
To set a ringtone, go to the "Settings" device, then to the section "Sound" and "Ringtone". Select the one you like from the list of standard melodies. The user is given the opportunity to set the melodies downloaded from the Internet to call. To do this, download your favorite song to your device and set it to the call. In the same section as the standard ringtones, click on the Plus sign in the upper right corner. Thus, add the downloaded melody to the list of available ones.
The main advantage of the operating system is the ability to install various applications. With the help of additional programs, smartphones and tablets become real helpers for their owners. They allow you to receive the necessary information around the clock, buy goods in online stores, work remotely, solve business issues, read books online, and much more. Thus, the user of the device will be able to fully use its functions.
To access the official app store, you need a Google account. The Play Market icon is located on the desktop. Tap on it to launch the application. There is a search bar at the top of the screen. If the user needs to download a specific application, enter its name to search. Google Play has sections: games, applications, music, books and magazines. At the bottom of the screen is a list of new movies and the most popular applications.
In modern games and applications, in-house purchases can be provided, which can be an unpleasant surprise for the smartphone owner. Often, parents give their children a smartphone to play with. To protect against accidental purchases, you need to set a password for it. To do this, launch the Play Market and go to "Settings". Enter the section "Require a password upon purchase" and put a checkmark in front of the item "For all purchases on Google Play on this device".
Discounts are available on many apps every day on Google Play. Some users are not informed about this. It is physically unrealistic to constantly monitor the appearance of profitable discounts in the app store. Therefore, we recommend installing a special program on the device that will notify you about sales and discounts.
There are many similar applications. The most popular among users is AppSales. You can use the filter system to clear the list of suggestions from unnecessary programs. The user can select the category of applications of interest, or a specific program.
Android provides an opportunity for the user to experiment, install and use new programs. If several programs are installed on the smartphone for the same purpose, the system will ask which one the user prefers to use at the moment. You can select the program manually every time, or you can do it once and ask the system not to ask again.
If you accidentally chose the wrong program that you wanted, you can return it to the dialog box like this:
There are several ways to remove programs from an Android device. First method:
The second way is to find the program in the application menu, drag the shortcut to the trash can. In some smartphones with pure Android, this is not possible.
The third way is to delete it through the Play Market. Run the application. In the menu, select the section "My applications". Tap on the required application and select the "Delete" function.
The necessary programs can be downloaded not only from the official app store, but also from third-party sites. To do this, the user needs to activate the corresponding function on the device, since it is disabled by default. Find the "Security" tab in the settings. Put a check mark next to "Unknown sources" and "Check applications". Then you can download the installation file of the program with the APK extension.
Any application downloaded from a third-party resource carries a risk for the device. Therefore, the developers recommend downloading programs only from trusted official sources.
Some users prefer to use third-party app stores due to good discounts. The procedure for downloading and installing the application is the same as described above. Please note the following when downloading them:
Many people are interested in what is Android in a phone? This is a special program that provides control over the device, all other applications run under its control. It is used not only in smarts, but also in tablets, e-readers and even in game consoles. The giant of the information technology world is engaged in the development and promotion of this operating system - the Google company, version 1.0 of Android was released back in 2008.
Google allows you to use Android absolutely free of charge, so they install it now even on the simplest and cheapest phones with a touch screen. The resulting gadget is called a smartphone, a "smart" phone, the main difference of which from a conventional push-button is the ability to install additional applications. Due to its wide distribution (more than three-quarters of mobile devices work under its control), this "operating system" has received a set of programs for every taste.
With Android on your phone, you can:
And all this is not done using the built-in functions of the Android system - for any purpose there are dozens and hundreds of programs, the vast majority of which are free for you. This is the whole power of this operating system: each person can completely customize the phone to their needs, making it the perfect fit for them. Unlike iOS (a completely closed system in Apple products), android gadgets allow you to change almost everything in them: the appearance of the home screen, the virtual keyboard used for input, and even the application launch system.
To start using your phone fully, you either need to use a SIM card with Internet access. When starting for the first time, you need to enter your Google account data (you may have already started it on your computer) or create a new one.
This account is very convenient for the user, all his data is stored there: from phone numbers to the history of the Chrome browser and its bookmarks. All this is located on servers on the Internet, you can relax - in the event of a breakdown or loss of your smartphone, all the necessary numbers will not be lost, as is the case with ordinary push-button telephones. There is one account for all devices - you can, without having finished reading the article on the site from your computer, add a bookmark to it, and then finish reading it in the subway by opening it from your phone.
After the account is ready, you can click on. This is an app store that contains everything you might need on your phone. Here is a list of regularly used programs:
Dozens and hundreds of applications are registered on Google Play every day. How do you, for example, have a program that will give you the artist and the name of the song by a tune sung into your phone? And what about an app for photographers that (depending on the date and your location) will tell you what periods in the morning and in the evening the sunshine will create the most enchanting atmosphere for a photo shoot?
As you can see, the possibilities of Android phones are endless, which is why they have almost supplanted regular phones with buttons.
When people hear this word, they have many questions: "Why a green robot?", "How difficult is it to handle?", "How to install programs or make a backup copy?" new mobile phone? " other.
But what is Android in general? Let's try to figure it out.
Android (eng. "Android") Is the name of a software platform for devices (most of which: mobile devices) based on the Linux kernel. It was originally created by Android Inc., which was acquired by Google. Android provides the ability to develop Java applications that control the device using libraries developed by Google. Distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
Used in a wide range of devices:
It is planned to install the Android system on the automotive computerized part and robotic vehicles (military and household). Now it is the most common operating system for mobile devices (for example, in 2014 more than 80% of smartphones sold had the Android operating system).
In the fall of 2012, L. Page (executive director of Google) published statistics on the activation of over 500 million mobile devices based on Android. To compare the speed of distribution of this OS - in the fall of 2013 it became known that more than 1 billion Android devices were activated on our planet.
The main competitor in the mobile segment at the moment is Apple with an expensive proprietary operating system called iOS. Like Apple, Google has its own Internet market, but it has not only paid, but also many free products, unlike its competitor, which sells its full-fledged programs most often for more than $ 0.
In the fall of 2008, Google presented an online store of programs (applications) for its OS - Android Market. In terms of payment, the developers receive about 70% of the profits, and the remaining 30% are received by the operators providing access to the cellular network. As of January 2012, more than 10 billion applications have been downloaded since the launch of Android Market.
In the spring of 2012, the company combined its multimedia services, such as "Books", "Android Market", "Music" and others. "Google Play" appeared. The Google Play online store is used in more than 180 countries and has over half a million applications downloaded over 25 billion times.
Unlike iОS, Android is a free platform, which gives it the opportunity to implement more different functions and make itself more versatile, with the help of firmware and patches from third-party programmers.
Longtime iPhone users know how early versions of iOS worked. In fact, it was a single-tasking operating system that allowed only preinstalled applications to work in the background or interrupt the current application: you read a book, they call you - the book reader is minimized, and a call window appears on the screen. But the reverse operation is impossible: the book reader not only cannot interrupt the work of other applications, but will also be killed immediately after minimizing.
The raison d'être of such a system is, of course, to save processor, RAM, and battery life. Thanks to her (but not only), the iPhone could work quickly in conditions of limited resources and was very careful about the battery.
Android has always worked differently. Here you can run many different applications and they will all remain in memory and can even work in the background. You open your browser, enter the address and, while the page is loading, launch the mail client and read the letters. Everything is like on a desktop, with the exception that you do not need to worry about closing applications, the system will do it itself when the RAM comes to an end or it is not enough to accommodate the application being launched (of course, rarely used applications will be consumed first. ). This mechanism is called lowmemorykiller.
As root, the lowmemorykiller settings can be adjusted directly or using special applications
An important element of the multitasking system was services. These are special application components that could work in the background in absolutely any conditions: screen turned on or off, application minimized or expanded, services do not even care if the parent application is running at all. It just said, "Hey Android, I need CPU resources, I want to do some math," and it received those resources. In Android terminology, such a request to the system is called wakelock(or more precisely, the processor wakelock).
However, supporting such a powerful and useful tool has played a cruel joke on Google. A huge number of applications appeared that produced services for every sneeze, constantly did some kind of work and did not let the smartphone sleep. Having installed a hundred applications on a smartphone, the user received several dozen services, each of which periodically did something (updating the Twitter feed while the phone is sleeping is so important).
Things were so deplorable that Chinese manufacturers, not burdened with the task of maintaining compatibility with the original Android (this is required if you want to install the Play Store on your smartphones), simply turned off the mechanisms for maintaining the life cycle of services for non-system applications in their smartphones.
Advanced users went the other way: they got root privileges and installed the Greenify application, which allowed them to freeze the services of the selected applications so that no one could wake them up. There were also more radical options, for example, to demolish all the software that you use less than once a day.
Google itself has also taken action to combat poisonous services. A big step in this direction was taken in Android 4.4, where an intelligent mechanism appeared that determined whether a service was running for too long and whether it was loading the processor too much, and, if it turned out to be so, nailed it in place and prevented it from starting. Even at a superficial glance, this version of the system lived on battery much longer than the previous ones.
In Android 6.0, Google went even further and equipped it with a mechanism Doze, which after a certain time of inactivity of the smartphone (about one hour) put it into a special energy-saving mode. One of the features of this mode is the prohibition on wakelock, that is, neither applications nor services simply can wake up the smartphone to do any work. By eye, Android 6.0 didn't live longer, so it's not known if this mechanism worked at all.
Doze work barFinally, in Android 8.0, Google took a radical step by disabling background services. But with two exceptions:
The application in some cases, for example, when it is on the screen, can start services, but Android will kill them after the application goes to sleep.
User-visible services are still allowed. This is the so-called foreground service, a service that is visible in the notification panel and has an icon in the status bar.
It would seem, yes, services are evil, but now how can applications such as anti-theft, which should work invisibly in the background, be? Or the same email client? Due to the need to periodically check your mail, should it hang in the notification bar?
Not really. Google has been moving towards banning services since version 5.0, where the so-called JobScheduler... This is a special subsystem that allows applications to ask Android to do a certain job at a certain time or when such and such an event occurs (an Internet connection, for example). And yes, JobScheduler closely resembles a similar function from iOS.
Contrary to popular belief, Android has used sandboxes to isolate applications since the earliest versions. And they were implemented in a very interesting way. Each application ran as a separate Linux user and thus only had access to its own directory inside / data / data.
Applications could communicate with each other and with the operating system only through the IPC mechanism Binder, which required authorization to perform an action. The same mechanism was used for several other purposes: with its help, the system notifies applications about system events, such as an incoming call, incoming SMS, plugging in a charge, and so on. Apps received messages and could respond to them.
Binder is supported by a driver in the Linux kernel and Service ManagerThis feature gave Android the very rich automation capabilities that we know about from apps like Tasker, Automate, or Locale. All of these applications are available for Android 8 as well, except that some dangerous features, such as turning on / off airplane mode, are now prohibited from normal applications.
The warning system is based on intent, a special mechanism implemented on top of Binder and designed to exchange information between applications (or OS and applications), as well as launch application components. Using intents, you can notify applications about events, ask the system to open an application to process certain types of data (for example, to open a specific page in a browser, you just need to send a broadcast intent with a link to the page, and all applications that can display web pages will respond to it. or just the default browser) or just launch a component of an application. For example, applications in Android are launched not directly, but using intents.
Unfortunately, like services, intents have become a problem for Google and Android users. The fact is that broadcast intents used to notify applications about events go immediately to all applications that have declared that they are capable of responding to them. And for the application to be able to react to the intent, it must be launched. The picture looks like this: there are twenty applications on a smartphone that can respond to the android.net.conn.CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE intent, and every time you connect to the network and disconnect from it, the system launches these applications so that they can respond to the intent. How does this affect energy consumption - imagine yourself.
Google corrected this misunderstanding again in Android 8.0. Applications can now register broadcast intent handlers only while they are running (with a few exceptions).
Google likes to flaunt that Android is an open source operating system. This, of course, is not entirely true. On the one hand, the Android code is really open source, which is why we have access to so many different custom firmwares. On the other hand, collecting Android from official sources, you will get a system without several important components: 1) individual drivers, the sources of which are hidden by the manufacturer as a trade secret, 2) Google services, which are needed primarily to gain access to your account, launch Google Play and cloud backup.
Google Mobile Services are also responsible for many other things, including support for push notifications, Instant Apps, Google Maps, calendar access, location using cell towers and Wi-Fi routers, Smart Lock mechanism that allows you to unlock the device in depending on some conditions.
In modern versions of Android, Google services have taken over so much of the work that it turns out to be, though possible, very problematic to live without them. And it's not fun with them either: the minimal version of the GApps package (which contains only Google and Google Play services) weighs more than 120 MB, and the services themselves are famous for their love of RAM and battery power. And they are also closed, that is, only Google itself knows what they can do.
You can download a package with Google services and applications for custom firmware from the opengapps.org website (the word open does not mean that they are open)That is why the microG project was born, whose task is to recreate the most important functionality of Google services in open source. Already, microG allows you to access your account, activate push notifications, access to Google maps and determine the location by cell towers. And all this at a size of four mega and almost no requirements for RAM and battery life.
The project has its own assembly of LineageOS firmware, which out of the box includes microG and all the modifications necessary for its work.
Android is based on the Linux kernel. The kernel manages the resources of the smartphone, including access to hardware, management of RAM and read-only memory, starting, stopping, and transferring processes between processor cores and many other tasks. As with any OS, the kernel is the heart of Android, the core without which everything else would fall apart.
Layer Pie Android The presence of a Linux kernel, as well as a partially POSIX-compliant runtime environment (primarily a bionic library based on the OpenBSD implementation of the C standard library) makes Android compatible with Linux applications. For example, the wpa_supplicant authentication system used to connect to Wi-Fi networks is exactly the same as in any Linux distribution. Earlier versions of Android used a standard Linux bluetooth stack called bluez (later replaced by Qualcomm's implementation called Bluedroid). It even has its own console with a set of standard UNIX / Linux commands implemented in the Toybox set, originally created for embedded Linux systems.
Most console applications written for Linux can be ported to Android by simple recompilation using a cross-compiler (the main thing is to use static compilation so as not to get a library conflict), and having root rights, you can run a full-fledged one on an Android device without any problems. One caveat - it will be possible to access it either only through the console, or using a VNC connection. There is also a Maru OS project that allows you to use your smartphone as a Debian-based PC when connected to a monitor. The same function promises when you connect your smartphones to the monitor using the DeX dock.
Good old mc running in AndroidStarting from version 4.4 Android is able to use SELinux forced access control system to protect against hacking and gain root privileges. SELinux is developed by the US National Security Agency and, without going into details, allows you to restrict applications (including low-level system components) in capabilities. And it's not about the permissions that the user grants to applications, but about such things as system calls and access to certain files, regardless of the standard UNIX permissions.
A series of Stagefright vulnerabilities that hit Android several years ago made it possible to gain control over the device by simply forcing the user to open the received MMS or special file in the browser. The problem was with the Stagefright multimedia framework containing multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities. When opening a specially prepared multimedia file, the exploit exploited the vulnerability and ran the code on the device on behalf of Stagefright (which worked under the root).
Google successfully closed all these bugs, and also worked on modularizing the framework code and launching it in special SELinux domains. These domains prevent media components from using most of the Linux system calls, including the execve group system calls that were involved in running the malicious code.
SELinux is used today to protect almost all Android system components. And this was the reason for a sharp decrease in the number of bugs found in Android. But it led to the focus of crackers on the kernel, or rather those very closed drivers, whose code was not audited and whose security was not guaranteed (and it, as it turned out, is in a deplorable state).
(7 estimates, average: 5,00 out of 5)
Hello friends, I am starting to develop the section related to smartphones, now it is fully functional. Now on the site you will find a bunch of interesting articles about smartphones based on Android. I will build up as much detail as possible to convey to users about new smartphones, that is, there will be a lot of news. The emphasis, of course, will be on the creation of materials for working with the OS. That is to say, an instruction from A to Z. For now, I'll start with the simplest, and write an article about what it is and what its advantages and disadvantages are. Now we pass to the point.
Android Is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, which was acquired by Google in 2005. In 2008, the first version of the operating system was released. This OS is designed for smartphones, tablets and many other devices. At the moment, it is being built into watches, various navigators, consoles and players.
Nowadays, a huge number of smartphones and other devices with this system are being created. She gained terrible popularity, so she has almost no competitors, except perhaps iOS.
I think it's not worth listing the well-known brands of today's phones that are growing by leaps and bounds. So, they all use Android. If we talk about a clean system, then we can say that it is very nimble and productive. Many manufacturers, taking this OS as a basis, make their own shell with additional functions, capabilities and design. Someone does it better, and the system flies, but in some devices it is not very good.
With the help of the operating system, you have the ability to control functions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS, create Wi-Fi hotspots, that is, make a modem from your phone and much more. Modern smartphones incorporate fingerprint and iris scan sensors, which can significantly improve protection - all of which can be controlled using Android. Naturally Apple is trying to keep up with its iOS.
Let's take a look at the pros and cons:
These are the main positive characteristics that I noted for myself. Maybe there is something else. In addition to the pros, there are also disadvantages:
In addition to the pure system from Google, there are a number of enthusiasts developing their own firmware, which have their own functionality and capabilities. You will see a completely different design, it happens that the firmware of another manufacturer will work better than pure Android.
At the moment, there are such companies that create firmware for smartphones and other devices: CyanogenMod, which is now LineageOS, AOKP, MIUI, Paranoid Android, AOSP, Replicant and others.
Enthusiastic developers try to release firmware versions on time, together with the release of a clean OS. But sometimes it is not necessary to flash the phone, since the manufacturers could take care of this.
Everyone knows that every day hundreds of programs and games are uploaded to the Google Play Market. You can find in general what your heart desires, these are various audio and video players, desktop wallpapers, file managers, of which there are probably thousands, a bunch of software for communicating with people - social networks, instant messengers and others. You can also download movies, books and music from there. Of course, the content there is both paid and free.
A little bit of theory. The Android application code is written for the so-called Dalvic virtual machine. Applications are in .apk format, this is the only format. Until recently, the applications themselves could be written in Java, and since 2009, Google has added a special package of capabilities that allows you to create software in C and C ++. Also, there are many development environments such as Embarcadero RAD Studio.
As for the app store itself, we opened it in 2008. The agreement was that the software developers give 30% of the profits to Google. By the standards of 2017, there are about 2.8 million applications in the Play Market database.
Of course, there were unscrupulous users who posted applications with malicious code, which caused a scandal around 2011, but the problems were quickly hushed up and the vulnerabilities were closed.
Who would not say that, but the direct specific Play Market is the App Store - an application store for iPhone, iPad, iPod and others. They have less software than in the Play Market. The developers' income is the same as that of Google. You create a paid application for which you will give 30% of the profit.
And now almost the penultimate fad, in which I want to talk about the internal components of the system. Those who use this system should understand at least a little about it. And let's compare it with Windows.
So, Linux differs from Windows in that the second information is decomposed into disks and daddies, of course, in Linux as well, but this is displayed in different ways. In Linux systems, a tree-like structure.
There are also differences in registers. If you create several folders with the same names, then on Windows there will be no difference, but on Linux they will be completely different folders. This also applies to files. These names will be different in Linux - Papka, papka, PAPKA.
Always the cache for the system and some application will be saved in a special section - cache.
Surely everyone saw the folder in the file manager data... This directory has other folders related to installation files and directories from applications.
Configuration files and software libraries can be found in the app-lib folder.
To make applications work, they are written in Java for a special virtual machine Dalvik. Therefore, you may come across a directory dalvic-cache... Sometimes it needs to be cleaned, for example, before flashing the phone. This is done using root-rights or from, but I will definitely tell about all this in future articles.
You will definitely see the directory in the file manager system... From the name it is clear that system settings are stored there, changing which can damage your system.
In the catalog etc you will find files that allow the system to start normally.
These are not all the folders that are in the Android system. It will take a few additional articles to figure it all out.
Many people know that each modification of the system has a key name, usually some kind of dessert. For example, Cupcake, which means cupcake. One of the popular versions 4.1-4.3 is called Jelly Bean. But version 4.4 is named after the famous KitKat chocolate bar. The next modification 5.0 and 5.1 is called Lollipop - lollipop. The sixth variant is Marshmallow and, finally, the latest version 7.0-7.1.2 received the Nougat code.
Already very little is left before the release of version 8, or as it is called Android O. The beta version of the operating system is already installed on some flagships and works stably. The full OS will be released at the end of 2017. And yes, the keyword is likely to be Oreo. Below you will see a video on the presentation of the eighth version.
Well guys, I finished the article, now you know what Android is, where it is used, its chips. In future articles, I will tell you almost everything related to this operating system. Well, I wish you good luck!
