ANDROID

Android is an operating system for mobile devices such as cellular phones, tablet computers and netbooks. Android was developed by Google and is based upon the Linux kernel and GNU software. It was initially developed by Android Inc. (a firm later purchased by Google) and lately broadened to the Open Handset Alliance. According to NPD Group, unit sales for Android OS smartphones ranked first among all smartphone OS handsets sold in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2010, at 33%.

Android has a large community of developers writing apps that extend the functionality of the devices. There are currently over 70,000 apps available for Android with some estimates saying 100,000 have been submitted, which makes it the second most popular mobile development target. Developers write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.