Android is an operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance, which Google controls for mobile gadgets such as tablet computers and smartphones. Android Inc. was the initial developer of Android, and Google purchased it on August 17, 2005. The Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of many software, hardware, and telecommunication companies, was then formed.
The Android operating system was distributed on November 5, 2007. Since then, Android phones have grown by leaps and bounds and steadily captured the mobile market. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache license, which Is a software license. The functionality of Android devices is extended by the large number of apps developed by a community of developers maintained by Android.
As of October 2011, 300,000 Android apps could be downloaded, and the number has been increasing. The number of apps downloaded has been known to exceed 10 billion. Such apps can be downloaded from the Android Market, which is run by Google, or from third-party sites.
The Android operating system has had several updates since its original release, each adding a new feature or fixing a problem with an older version. The latest version is Ice Cream Sandwich, which adds facial recognition. Android phones have all the capabilities of smartphones, such as storage, messaging, connectivity, and multiple language support.
Java support, web browser, media support, multi-touch, streaming media support, Bluetooth, multitasking, video calling, voice-based features, screen capture, and tethering. HTC Dream was the first phone to run on commercially available Android. Since then, phones have added several brilliant new features, and the latest Samsung Galaxy series of phones are the best smartphones on the market.
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The growth of Android phones
As per the information provided by Canalys, a research company, Android had a share of 2.8 percent of the worldwide shipments of smartphones as of Q2 2009. By Q4 2010, it had captured 33 percent of the market and was at the -selling home platform. Gartner estimates that nearly 52.5 percent of the smartphone market belonged to Android as of Q4 2011. In February 2010, only 9 percent of the United States smartphone market was held by Android.
However, the number of mobile subscribers increased, and this number gradually increased to 21.4 percent as of Q3 2010. The US sales of Android surpassed that of iPhone in the first quarter of 2010. However, iPhone sales also grew, indicating that Android was capturing the RIM market in the US. Also, it is pointed out that since Android is a multi-carrier and multi-channel operating system, it quickly duplicates the success of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.
As of June 2011, 550 000 new Android gadgets were activated daily, and there were around 190 million Android devices in the smartphone market as of October 2011. This grew to 200 million users on November 16, 2011. Google bought Motorola Mobility for US $12.5 billion in August 2011, thereby strengthening its hold on the market. This led to the opening of the first Android store in Melbourne in December 2011.
