Bedritskyy М., Sokolova N. O., Osadcha O. V.

Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University

 FUNCTIONALITY PROSPECTS OF ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM

Android is the most popular operating system all over the word. Despite the fact that Android isn’t a desktop OS it is even more popular then windows because there are more devices running Android than Windows.

Android is a Linux-based operating system designed primarily for touch-screen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Initially developed by Android, Inc., which Google backed financially and later bought in 2005, Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance: a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. The logo for the Android operating system is an apple green robot designed by California-based graphic designer Irina Blok. The first Android-powered phone was sold in October 2008. It was one year after fist iPhone was released and Apple had much more market share.

The first reason why Android is so popular is that it is an open source and Google releases the code under the Apache License. This open source code and permissive licensing allows the software to be freely modified and distributed by device manufacturers, wireless carriers and enthusiast developers. That means that manufacturer of devises can modify it and even upgrade paying nothing to Google for it. Additionally, Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of devices, written primarily in a customized version of the Java programming language. In October 2012, there were approximately 700,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from Google Play, Android's primary app store, was 25 billion. Nowadays the amount of apps available for a devise is the most persuasive indicator when choosing a new phone or tablet computer.

The second reason is that it is easy for developers to make apps for Android. Applications are developed in the Java language using the Android software development kit (SDK). The SDK includes a comprehensive set of development tools, including a debugger, software libraries, a handset emulator based on QEMU, documentation, sample code, and tutorials. The officially supported integrated development environment (IDE) is Eclipse using the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin. Other development tools are available, including a Native Development Kit for applications or extensions in C or C++, Google App Inventor, a visual environment for novice programmers, and various cross platform mobile web applications frameworks.

The third reason of Android popularity is the amount of brands selling it. So devices running Android vary from the most expansive ones with powerful processors and brand new functions to the cheapest budget ones for those who don’t need the smartest phone. So people can choose a phone or a tablet depending on their pocket and needs.

These factors have allowed Android to become the world's most widely used smartphone platform, overtaking Symbian in the fourth quarter of 2010, and the software of choice for technology companies who require a low-cost, customizable, lightweight operating system for high tech devices without developing one from scratch. As a result, despite being primarily designed for phones and tablets, it has seen additional applications on televisions, games consoles and other electronics. Android's open nature has further encouraged a large community of developers and enthusiasts to use the open source code as a foundation for community-driven projects, which add new features for advanced users or bring Android to devices which were officially released running other operating systems.

The following numbers and calculations of the growth of Android can illustrate its growth. Research company Canalys estimated in the second quarter of 2009 that Android had a 2.8% share of worldwide smartphone shipments. By the fourth quarter of 2010 this had grown to 33% of the market, becoming the top-selling smartphone platform. By the third quarter of 2011 Gartner estimated that more than half (52.5%) of the smartphone market belongs to Android. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) – cite_note-141 By the third quarter of 2012 Android had a 75% share of the global smartphone market according to the research firm IDC.

In July 2011, Google said that 550,000 new Android devices were being activated every day, up from 400,000 per day in May, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Android_(operating_system) – cite_note-143 and more than 100 million devices had been activated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_ (operating_system) – cite_note-i.2Fo_2011_stats-144 with 4.4% growth per week. In September 2012, 500 million devices had been activated with 1.3 million activations per day.

Android market share varies by location. In July 2012, Android's market share in the United States was 52%, and rises to 90% in China. As you can see the increase of users is just unbelievable and it is still growing. Android is one of the most popular operating systems all over the world. Creating applications with the integrated software development kit along with widely-spread framework makes Android very attractive for the developer community.