AndroidAndroid， as a system， is a Java—based operating system that runs on the Linux 2。6 kernel。 The system is very lightweight and full featured 。 Android applications are developed using Java and can be ported rather easily to the new platform. If you have not yet downloaded Java or are unsure about which version you need， I detail the installation of the development environment in Chapter 2. Other features of Android include an accelerated 3—D graphics engine （ based on hardware support）， database support powered by SQLite， and an integrated web browser。 If you are familiar with Java programming or are an OOP developer of any sort， you are likely used to programmatic user interface (UI） development—that is, UI placement which is handled directly within the program code. Android, while recognizing and allowing for programmatic UI development ， also supports the newer, XML—based UI layout. XML UI layout is a fairly new concept to the average desktop developer。 I will cover both the XML UI layout and the programmatic UI development in the supporting chapters of this book.One of the more exciting and compelling features of Android is that， because of its architecture, third—party applications—including those that are “home grown”—are executed with the same system priority as those that are bundled with the core system. This is a major departure from most systems, which give embedded system apps a greater execution priority than the thread priority available to apps created by third—party developers 。 Also, each application is executed within its own thread using a very lightweight virtual machine。Aside from the very generous SDK and the well—formed libraries that are ava...
