Android Platform

Recently, when I was reading an article about "Adam"- a tablet built by Notion Ink(a Hyderabad based company), started by a group of dedicated Indians from IIT Delhi and Kharagpur, came to know about Android Platform.

"Adam" is proving itself a worthy competitor of "Apple's iPad". Adam is ready to be launch in US and Notion Ink will make it available in June/July and will charge between range of $327-$800 (Rs. 15,700-Rs. 38,400 approx.) depending on the configuration. While iPad's starting price is $499 (Rs. 24,000 approx.).

The Adam tablet runs dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPUs bearing Nvidia Tegra 2 System-on-a-Chip while Apple iPad uses company's own A4 SoC silicon. Both SoC chips have capability of running at 1GHz clock speed.

Well that is all about Adam and Apple! Now i'll talk about only "Android" the platform on which these two players are playing their games!

The Android platform is the product of the "Open Handset Alliance", a group of organizations collaborating to build a better mobile phone. The group, led by Google, includes mobile operators, device handset manufacturers, component manufacturers, software solution and platform providers, and marketing companies. From a software development standpoint, Android sits smack in the middle of the open source world.

There are very few Android developers in India. Android environment is built upon Linux Kernel. Its UI subsystem includes,

• Windows
• Views
• Widgets

Android provides all connectivity options including WiFi, Bluetooth, and wireless data over a cellular connection (for example, GPRS, EDGE, and 3G). A popular technique in Android applications is to link to Google Maps to display an address directly within an application. Support for location-based services (such as GPS) and accelerometers is also available in the Android software stack, though not all Android devices are equipped with the required hardware. There is also camera support.

Android promises to be a market-moving open source platform that will be useful well beyond cell phones.

For more http://www.android.com/index.html