Android is a
mobile operating system
A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used ...
based on a modified version of the
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
and other
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
software, designed primarily for
touchscreen
A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
mobile devices such as
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, wh ...
s and
tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of developers known as the
Open Handset Alliance
The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is a consortium of 84 firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile ...
and commercially sponsored by
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electro ...
. It was unveiled in November 2007, with the first commercial Android device, the
HTC Dream, being launched in September 2008.
Most versions of Android are proprietary. The core components are taken from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which is
free and open-source software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
(FOSS) primarily licensed under the
Apache License. When Android is installed on devices, the ability to modify the otherwise free and open-source software is usually restricted, either by not providing the corresponding source code or by preventing reinstallation through technical measures, thus rendering the installed version proprietary. Most Android devices ship with additional
proprietary software
Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and ...
pre-installed, most notably
Google Mobile Services
Google Mobile Services (GMS) is a collection of proprietary applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) services from Google that are typically pre-installed on Android devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. GMS ...
(GMS) which includes core apps such as
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...
, the
digital distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other ...
platform
Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sys ...
, and the associated
Google Play Services
Google Play Services is a proprietary software package produced by Google for installation on Android devices. It consists of background services and libraries for use by mobile apps running on the device When it was introduced in 2012, it pr ...
development platform.
Over 70 percent of Android smartphones run Google's ecosystem, some with vendor-customized user interfaces and software suites, such as
TouchWiz
TouchWiz was a user interface developed by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd with partners, featuring a full touch user interface. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as an operating system. TouchWiz is used internally by Samsung for smartphones, ...
and later
One UI by Samsung and
HTC Sense
HTC Sense is a software suite developed by HTC, used primarily on the company's Android-based devices. Serving as a successor to HTC's TouchFLO 3D software for Windows Mobile, Sense modifies many aspects of the Android user experience, incor ...
. Competing Android ecosystems and
forks
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca ' pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods e ...
include
Fire OS
Fire OS is a mobile operating system based on the Android Open Source Project, it is developed by Amazon for their devices. Fire OS includes proprietary software, a customized user interface primarily centered on content consumption, and hea ...
(developed by
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company)
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an Amer ...
),
ColorOS
ColorOS is a mobile operating system created by Oppo Electronics based on the Android Open Source Project. Initially, Realme phones used ColorOS until it was replaced by Realme UI in 2020. Starting from OnePlus 9 series OnePlus will preinsta ...
by
OPPO, OriginOS by
Vivo,
MagicUI by
Honor
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
, or custom ROMs such as
LineageOS
LineageOS is an Android-based operating system for smartphones, tablet computers, and set-top boxes, with mostly free and open-source software. It is the successor to CyanogenMod, from which it was forked in December 2016, when Cyanogen Inc. ...
. However, the "Android" name and logo are
trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from o ...
s of Google, which imposes standards to restrict the use of Android branding by "uncertified" devices outside their ecosystem.
The source code has been used to develop variants of Android on a range of other electronics, such as
game consoles
A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a ...
,
digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devic ...
s,
portable media player
A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored ...
s, and
PCs
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...
, each with a specialized user interface. Some well known derivatives include
Android TV
Android TV is a smart TV operating system based on Android and developed by Google for television sets, digital media players, set-top boxes, and soundbars. A successor to Google TV, it features a user interface designed around content discover ...
for televisions and
Wear OS for wearables, both developed by Google. Software packages on Android, which use the
APK format, are generally distributed through proprietary
application stores like
Google Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
,
Amazon Appstore
Amazon Appstore is an app store for Android-compatible platforms operated by Amazon.com Services, LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon.
The store is primarily used as the storefront for Amazon's Android-based Fire OS. including Amazon Fire tablets, and ...
(including for
Windows 11
Windows 11 is the latest major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released in October 2021. It is a free upgrade to its predecessor, Windows 10 (2015), and is available for any Windows 10 devices that meet the new Windows 1 ...
),
Samsung Galaxy Store,
Huawei AppGallery,
Cafe Bazaar, and
GetJar
GetJar is an independent mobile phone app store founded in Lithuania in 2004, with offices in Vilnius, Lithuania and San Mateo, California
.
History
The company was founded by Ilja Laurs in 2004, who is currently its Executive Chairman and Ch ...
, or open source platforms like
Aptoide
Aptoide is an online marketplace for mobile applications which runs on the Android operating system. In Aptoide, unlike the Android-default Play Store, there is not a unique and centralized store; instead, each user manages their own store. The ...
or
F-Droid
F-Droid is an app store and software repository for Android, serving a similar function to the Google Play store. The main repository, hosted by the project, contains only free and open source apps. Applications can be browsed, downloaded a ...
.
Android has been the best-selling OS worldwide on smartphones since 2011 and on tablets since 2013. , it had over three billion
monthly active users
Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...
, the largest
installed base of any operating system, and , the Google Play Store featured over 3 million apps.
Android 13
Android 13 is the thirteenth major release of the Android mobile operating system, developed by Google, released for the public on August 15, 2022.
History
Android 13 (internally codenamed Tiramisu, after the Italian dessert) was announ ...
, released on August 15, 2022, is the latest version,
and the recently released Android 12.1/12L includes improvements specific to
foldable phones, tablets,
desktop
A desktop traditionally refers to:
* The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor)
Desktop may refer to various compu ...
-sized
screens and
Chromebooks.
History
Android Inc. was founded in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was e ...
, in October 2003 by
Andy Rubin,
Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White.
Rubin described the Android project as having "tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences".
The early intentions of the company were to develop an advanced operating system for
digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devic ...
s, and this was the basis of its pitch to investors in April 2004.
The company then decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its goals, and five months later it had diverted its efforts and was pitching Android as a handset operating system that would rival
Symbian
Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbi ...
and Microsoft
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants.
Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...
.
Rubin had difficulty attracting investors early on, and Android was facing eviction from its office space.
Steve Perlman, a close friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000 in cash in an envelope, and shortly thereafter wired an undisclosed amount as seed funding. Perlman refused a stake in the company, and has stated "I did it because I believed in the thing, and I wanted to help Andy."
In 2005, Rubin tried to negotiate deals with
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under th ...
and
HTC
HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...
. Shortly afterwards,
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electro ...
acquired the company in July of that year for at least $50 million;
this was Google's "best deal ever" according to Google's then-vice president of corporate development,
David Lawee, in 2010.
Android's key employees, including Rubin, Miner, Sears, and White, joined Google as part of the acquisition.
Not much was known about the secretive Android Inc. at the time, with the company having provided few details other than that it was making software for mobile phones.
At Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
. Google marketed the platform to
handset makers and
carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system. Google had "lined up a series of hardware components and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation".
Speculation about Google's intention to enter the mobile communications market continued to build through December 2006. An early
prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally use ...
had a close resemblance to a
BlackBerry phone, with no touchscreen and a physical
QWERTY
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden ...
keyboard, but the arrival of 2007's
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancesto ...
iPhone meant that Android "had to go back to the drawing board". Google later changed its Android specification documents to state that "Touchscreens will be supported", although "the Product was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption, therefore a touchscreen cannot completely replace physical buttons". By 2008, both
Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finlan ...
and BlackBerry announced touch-based smartphones to rival the
iPhone 3G
The iPhone 3G (also known as iPhone 2) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc.; it is the second generation of iPhone, successor to the original iPhone, and was introduced on June 9, 2008, at the WWDC 2008 at the Mos ...
, and Android's focus eventually switched to just touchscreens. The first commercially available smartphone running Android was the
HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23, 2008.

On November 5, 2007, the
Open Handset Alliance
The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is a consortium of 84 firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile ...
, a
consortium
A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resource ...
of technology companies including Google, device manufacturers such as HTC,
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
and Samsung, wireless carriers such as
Sprint
Sprint may refer to:
Aerospace
*Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design
*Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile
Automotive and motorcycle
* Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989
* Chevrolet Sprin ...
and
T-Mobile
T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States ( T-Mob ...
, and chipset makers such as
Qualcomm
Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, ...
and
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers global ...
, unveiled itself, with a goal to develop "the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices".
Within a year, the Open Handset Alliance faced two other
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...
competitors, the
Symbian Foundation
The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evangeli ...
and the
LiMo Foundation
The Tizen Association, formerly the LiMo Foundation (short for Linux Mobile), is a non-profit consortium which develops and maintains the Tizen mobile operating system. Tizen is a Linux-based operating system for smartphones and other mobile devic ...
, the latter also developing a
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, wh ...
-based mobile operating system like Google. In September 2007, ''
InformationWeek
''InformationWeek'' is a digital magazine which conducts corresponding face-to-face events, virtual events, and research. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, l ...
'' covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
applications in the area of mobile telephony.
Since 2008, Android has seen
numerous updates which have incrementally improved the operating system, adding new features and fixing
bugs in previous releases. Each major release is named in alphabetical order after a dessert or sugary treat, with the first few Android versions being called "
Cupcake
A cupcake (also British English: fairy cake; Hiberno-English: bun) is a small cake designed to serve one person, which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminum cup. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations such as frui ...
", "
Donut
A doughnut or donut () is a type of food made from leavened fried dough. It is popular in many countries and is prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and fran ...
", "
Eclair", and "
Froyo", in that order. During its announcement of
Android KitKat
Android KitKat is the codename for the eleventh Android mobile operating system, representing release version 4.4. Unveiled on September 3, 2013, KitKat focused primarily on optimizing the operating system for improved performance on entry-leve ...
in 2013, Google explained that "Since these devices make our lives so sweet, each Android version is named after a dessert", although a Google spokesperson told
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
in an interview that "It's kind of like an internal team thing, and we prefer to be a little bit—how should I say—a bit inscrutable in the matter, I'll say".
In 2010, Google launched its
Nexus
NEXUS is a joint Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection-operated Trusted Traveler and expedited border control program designed for pre-approved, low-risk travelers. Members of the program can avoid waits at border ...
series of devices, a lineup in which Google partnered with different device manufacturers to produce new devices and introduce new Android versions. The series was described as having "played a pivotal role in Android's history by introducing new software iterations and hardware standards across the board", and became known for its "
bloat-free" software with "timely ... updates". At its
developer conference in May 2013, Google announced a special version of the
Samsung Galaxy S4
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the suc ...
, where, instead of using Samsung's own Android customization, the phone ran "stock Android" and was promised to receive new system updates fast. The device would become the start of the
Google Play edition program, and was followed by other devices, including the
HTC One Google Play edition, and
Moto G
Motorola Moto is a range of Android mobile devices manufactured by Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Lenovo. The Moto brand is also used and marketed for certain public-safety products from Motorola Solutions and by Motorola brand licensees on ce ...
Google Play edition. In 2015, ''
Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, s ...
'' wrote that "Earlier this week, the last of the Google Play edition Android phones in Google's online storefront were listed as "no longer available for sale" and that "Now they're all gone, and it looks a whole lot like the program has wrapped up".

From 2008 to 2013,
Hugo Barra served as product spokesperson, representing Android at press conferences and
Google I/O
Google I/O (or simply I/O) is an annual developer conference held by Google in Mountain View, California. "I/O" stands for Input/Output, as well as the slogan "Innovation in the Open". The event's format is similar to Google Developer Day.
...
, Google's annual developer-focused conference. He left Google in August 2013 to join Chinese phone maker
Xiaomi
Corporation (; ), commonly known as Xiaomi and registered as Xiaomi Inc., is a Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics and related software, home appliances, and household items. Behind Samsung, it is the second largest m ...
. Less than six months earlier, Google's then-
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...
Larry Page
Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin.
Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 un ...
announced in a blog post that Andy Rubin had moved from the Android division to take on new projects at Google, and that
Sundar Pichai
Pichai Sundararajan (born June 10, 1972), better known as Sundar Pichai (), is an Indian-American business executive. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google.
Born in Madurai, India, Pichai earned ...
would become the new Android lead. Pichai himself would eventually switch positions, becoming the new CEO of Google in August 2015 following the company's restructure into the
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a ...
conglomerate, making
Hiroshi Lockheimer the new head of Android.
On
Android 4.4 ''Kit Kat'', shared writing access to
MicroSD
Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices.
The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between San ...
memory cards has been locked for user-installed applications, to which only the dedicated directories with respective package names, located inside
Android/data/
, remained writeable. Writing access has been reinstated with
Android 5 ''Lollipop'' through the
backwards-incompatible ''Google Storage Access Framework''
interface
Interface or interfacing may refer to:
Academic journals
* ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society
* '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics''
* '' Int ...
.
In June 2014, Google announced
Android One
Android One is a family of third-party Android smartphones promoted by Google. In comparison to many third-party Android devices, which ship with a manufacturer's customized user interface and bundled apps, these devices run near-stock versi ...
, a set of "hardware reference models" that would "allow
evice makersto easily create high-quality phones at low costs", designed for consumers in developing countries. In September, Google announced the first set of Android One phones for release in India. However, ''
Recode
''Recode'' (formerly ''Re/code'') is a technology news website that focused on the business of Silicon Valley. Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher founded it in January 2014, after they left Dow Jones and the similar website they had previously ...
'' reported in June 2015 that the project was "a disappointment", citing "reluctant consumers and manufacturing partners" and "misfires from the search company that has never quite cracked hardware". Plans to relaunch Android One surfaced in August 2015, with Africa announced as the next location for the program a week later. A report from ''The Information'' in January 2017 stated that Google is expanding its low-cost Android One program into the United States, although ''The Verge'' notes that the company will presumably not produce the actual devices itself. Google introduced the
Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones in October 2016, marketed as being the first phones made by Google, and exclusively featured certain software features, such as the
Google Assistant
Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software application developed by Google that is primarily available on mobile and home automation devices. Based on artificial intelligence, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations, unlike ...
, before wider rollout. The Pixel phones replaced the Nexus series, with a new generation of Pixel phones launched in October 2017.
In May 2019, the operating system became entangled in the
trade war between China and the United States involving
Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...
, which, like many other tech firms, had become dependent on access to the Android platform. In the summer of 2019, Huawei announced it would create an alternative operating system to Android known as
Harmony OS, and has filed for intellectual property rights across major global markets. Under such sanctions Huawei has long-term plans to replace Android in 2022 with the new operating system, as Harmony OS was originally designed for
internet of things
The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...
devices, rather than for smartphones and tablets.
On August 22, 2019, it was announced that Android "Q" would officially be branded as Android 10, ending the historic practice of naming major versions after desserts. Google stated that these names were not "inclusive" to international users (due either to the aforementioned foods not being internationally known, or being difficult to pronounce in some languages). On the same day, ''Android Police'' reported that Google had commissioned a statue of a giant number "10" to be installed in the lobby of the developers' new office. Android 10 was released on September 3, 2019, to
Google Pixel phones first.
In late 2021, some users reported that they were unable to dial emergency services. The problem was caused by a combination of bugs in Android and in the
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. Teams primarily competes with the similar service Slack, offering workspace chat and videoconferenci ...
app; both companies released updates addressing the issue.
Features
Interface
Android's default user interface is mainly based on
direct manipulation, using touch inputs that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching, and reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects, along with a
virtual keyboard
A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take place in a different form ...
.
Game controller
A game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game, typically to control an object or character in the game. Before the seventh generati ...
s and full-size physical keyboards are supported via
Bluetooth or
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply ( interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broa ...
. The response to user input is designed to be immediate and provides a fluid touch interface, often using the vibration capabilities of the device to provide
haptic feedback to the user. Internal hardware, such as
accelerometer
An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is ac ...
s,
gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rot ...
s and
proximity sensor
A proximity sensor is a sensor able to detect the presence of nearby objects without any physical contact.
A proximity sensor often emits an electromagnetic field or a beam of electromagnetic radiation ( infrared, for instance), and looks ...
s are used by some applications to respond to additional user actions, for example adjusting the screen from portrait to landscape depending on how the device is oriented, or allowing the user to steer a vehicle in a
racing game
Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic ra ...
by rotating the device, simulating control of a
steering wheel
A steering wheel (also called a driving wheel (UK), a hand wheel, or simply wheel) is a type of steering control in vehicles.
Steering wheels are used in most modern land vehicles, including all mass-production automobiles, buses, light a ...
.
Home screen
Android devices boot to the
home screen, the primary navigation and information "hub" on Android devices, analogous to the
desktop
A desktop traditionally refers to:
* The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor)
Desktop may refer to various compu ...
found on personal computers. Android home screens are typically made up of app icons and
widgets
Widget may refer to:
* Widget (beer), a device placed in cans and bottles of beer to aid in the generation of froth
* Widget (economics), a placeholder name for an unnamed, unspecified, or hypothetical manufactured good or product
* Software wid ...
; app icons launch the associated app, whereas widgets display live, auto-updating content, such as a
weather forecast, the user's email inbox, or a
news ticker
A news ticker (sometimes called a "crawler", "crawl", "slide", "zipper", or "ticker tape") is a horizontal or vertical (depending on a language's writing system) text-based display either in the form of a graphic that typically resides in the l ...
directly on the home screen. A home screen may be made up of several pages, between which the user can swipe back and forth.
Third-party apps available on
Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sys ...
and other app stores can extensively re-
theme the home screen, and even mimic the look of other operating systems, such as
Windows Phone
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro desi ...
. Most manufacturers customize the look and features of their Android devices to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Status bar
Along the top of the screen is a status bar, showing information about the device and its connectivity. This status bar can be pulled (swiped) down from to reveal a notification screen where apps display important information or updates, as well as quick access to system controls and toggles such as display brightness, connectivity settings (
WiFi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
, Bluetooth, cellular data), audio mode, and
flashlight
A flashlight ( US, Canada) or torch ( UK, Australia) is a portable hand-held electric lamp. Formerly, the light source typically was a miniature incandescent light bulb, but these have been displaced by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) since ...
.
Vendors may implement extended settings such as the ability to adjust the flashlight brightness.
Notifications
Notifications are "short, timely, and relevant information about your app when it's not in use", and when tapped, users are directed to a screen inside the app relating to the notification. Beginning with
Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean", "expandable notifications" allow the user to tap an icon on the notification in order for it to expand and display more information and possible app actions right from the notification.
App lists
An "All Apps" screen lists all installed applications, with the ability for users to drag an app from the list onto the home screen. The app list may be accessed using a gesture or a button, depending on the Android version. A "Recents" screen, also known as "Overview", lets users switch between recently used apps.
The recent list may appear side-by-side or overlapping, depending on the Android version and manufacturer.
Navigation buttons

Many early Android OS smartphones were equipped with a dedicated search button for quick access to a
web search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in ...
and individual apps' internal search feature. More recent devices typically allow the former through a long press or swipe away from the home button.
The dedicated option key, also known as menu key, and its on-screen simulation, is no longer supported since Android version 10. Google recommends mobile application developers to locate menus within the user interface.
On more recent phones, its place is occupied by a task key used to access the list of recently used apps when actuated. Depending on device, its long press may simulate a menu button press or engage
split screen view, the latter of which is the default behaviour since stock Android version 7.
Split-screen view
Native support for split screen view has been added in stock Android version 7.0 ''Nougat''.
The earliest vendor-customized Android-based smartphones known to have featured a split-screen view mode are the 2012
Samsung Galaxy S3 and
Note 2, the former of which received this feature with the ''premium suite'' upgrade delivered in
TouchWiz
TouchWiz was a user interface developed by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd with partners, featuring a full touch user interface. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as an operating system. TouchWiz is used internally by Samsung for smartphones, ...
with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
Charging while powered off
When connecting or disconnecting charging power and when shortly actuating the power button or home button, all while the device is powered off, a visual battery meter whose appearance varies among vendors appears on the screen, allowing the user to quickly assess the charge status of a powered-off without having to boot it up first. Some display the battery percentage.
Applications
Many, to almost all, Android devices come with preinstalled Google apps including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Chrome, YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies & TV, and many more.
Applications ("
apps"), which extend the functionality of devices (and must be 64-bit), are written using the
Android software development
Android software development is the process by which applications are created for devices running the Android operating system. Google states that "Android apps can be written using Kotlin, Java, and C++ languages" using the Android softwa ...
kit (SDK) and, often,
Kotlin programming language, which replaced
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
as Google's preferred language for Android app development in May 2019, and was originally announced in May 2017. Java is still supported (originally the only option for user-space programs, and is often mixed with Kotlin), as is
C++
C, or c, is the third Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet#Le ...
. Java or other JVM languages, such as Kotlin, may be combined with
C/C++, together with a choice of non-default
runtimes that allow better C++ support. The
Go programming language is also supported, although with a limited set of
application programming interfaces (API).
The SDK includes a comprehensive set of development tools, including a
debugger
A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the programmer to track its execu ...
,
software libraries, a handset
emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use per ...
based on
QEMU
QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run a variety of g ...
, documentation, sample code, and tutorials. Initially, Google's supported
integrated development environment
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools ...
(IDE) was
Eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...
using the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin; in December 2014, Google released
Android Studio, based on
IntelliJ IDEA, as its primary IDE for Android application development. Other development tools are available, including a
native development kit (NDK) 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. In January 2014, Google unveiled a framework based on
Apache Cordova
Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) is a mobile application development framework created by Nitobi. Adobe Systems purchased Nitobi in 2011, rebranded it as PhoneGap, and later released an open-source version of the software called Apache Cordova ...
for porting
Chrome HTML 5 web app
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
lications to Android, wrapped in a native application shell. Additionally,
Firebase
Firebase is a set of hosting services for any type of application (Android, iOS, Javascript, Node.js, Java, Unity, PHP, C++ ...). It offers NoSQL and real-time hosting of databases, content, social authentication (Google, Facebook, Twitter an ...
was acquired by Google in 2014 that provides helpful tools for app and web developers.
Android has a growing selection of third-party applications, which can be acquired by users by downloading and installing the application's
APK (Android application package) file, or by downloading them using an
application store program that allows users to
install, update, and remove applications from their devices.
Google Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
is the primary application store installed on Android devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements and license the Google Mobile Services software.
Google Play Store allows users to browse, download and update applications published by Google and third-party developers; , there are more than three million applications available for Android in Play Store.
, 50 billion application installations had been performed.
Some carriers offer direct carrier billing for Google Play application purchases, where the cost of the application is added to the user's monthly bill. , there are over one billion active users a month for Gmail, Android, Chrome, Google Play and Maps.
Due to the open nature of Android, a number of third-party application marketplaces also exist for Android, either to provide a substitute for devices that are not allowed to ship with Google Play Store, provide applications that cannot be offered on Google Play Store due to policy violations, or for other reasons. Examples of these third-party stores have included the
Amazon Appstore
Amazon Appstore is an app store for Android-compatible platforms operated by Amazon.com Services, LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon.
The store is primarily used as the storefront for Amazon's Android-based Fire OS. including Amazon Fire tablets, and ...
,
GetJar
GetJar is an independent mobile phone app store founded in Lithuania in 2004, with offices in Vilnius, Lithuania and San Mateo, California
.
History
The company was founded by Ilja Laurs in 2004, who is currently its Executive Chairman and Ch ...
, and SlideMe.
F-Droid
F-Droid is an app store and software repository for Android, serving a similar function to the Google Play store. The main repository, hosted by the project, contains only free and open source apps. Applications can be browsed, downloaded a ...
, another alternative marketplace, seeks to only provide applications that are distributed under
free and open source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
licenses
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
.
In October 2020, Google removed several Android applications from
Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sys ...
, as they were identified breaching its data collection rules. The firm was informed by International Digital Accountability Council (IDAC) that apps for children like ''Number Coloring'', ''Princess Salon'' and ''Cats & Cosplay'', with collective downloads of 20 million, were violating Google's policies.
At the
Windows 11
Windows 11 is the latest major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released in October 2021. It is a free upgrade to its predecessor, Windows 10 (2015), and is available for any Windows 10 devices that meet the new Windows 1 ...
announcement event in June 2021,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
showcased the new
Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) that will enable support for the
Android Open Source Project
Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of deve ...
(AOSP) and will allow users to run
Android apps on their Windows desktop.
Storage
The storage of Android devices can be expanded using secondary devices such as
SD cards. Android recognizes two types of secondary storage: ''portable'' storage (which is used by default), and ''adoptable'' storage. Portable storage is treated as an external storage device. Adoptable storage, introduced on Android 6.0, allows the internal storage of the device to be
spanned with the SD card, treating it as an extension of the internal storage. This has the disadvantage of preventing the memory card from being used with another device unless it is
reformatted.
Android 4.4 introduced the Storage Access Framework (SAF), a set of APIs for accessing files on the device's filesystem.
As of Android 11, Android has required apps to conform to a data privacy policy known as ''scoped storage'', under which apps may only automatically have access to certain directories (such as those for pictures, music, and video), and app-specific directories they have created themselves. Apps are required to use the SAF to access any other part of the filesystem.
Memory management
Since Android devices are usually battery-powered, Android is designed to manage processes to keep power consumption at a minimum. When an application is not in use the system
suspends its operation so that, while available for immediate use rather than closed, it does not use battery power or CPU resources.
Android manages the applications stored in memory automatically: when memory is low, the system will begin invisibly and automatically closing inactive processes, starting with those that have been inactive for the longest amount of time.
Lifehacker reported in 2011 that third-party task-killer applications were doing more harm than good.
Developer options
Some settings for use by
developers for
debugging
In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems.
Debugging tactics can involve ...
and
power user
A power user is a user of computers, software and other electronic devices, who uses advanced features of computer hardware, operating systems, programs, or websites which are not used by the average user. A power user might not have extensive tec ...
s are located in a "Developer options" sub menu, such as the ability to highlight updating parts of the display, show an overlay with the current status of the touch screen, show touching spots for possible use in
screencast
A screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture or a screen recording, often containing audio narration. The term ''screencast'' compares with the related term ''screenshot''; whereas screensho ...
ing, notify the user of unresponsive background processes with the option to end them ("Show all ANRs", i.e. "App's Not Responding"), prevent a Bluetooth audio client from controlling the system volume ("Disable absolute volume"), and adjust the duration of transition animations or deactivate them completely to speed up navigation.
Developer options are initially hidden since Android 4.2 "Jelly Bean", but can be enabled by actuating the operating system's build number in the device information seven times. Hiding developers options again requires deleting user data for the "Settings" app, possibly resetting some other preferences.
Hardware
The main hardware platform for Android is
ARM
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between ...
(the
ARMv7
ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
and
ARMv8-A
ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configure ...
architectures), with
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was ...
and
x86-64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...
architectures also officially supported in later versions of Android.
The unofficial
Android-x86
Android-x86 is an open source project that makes an unofficial porting of the Android mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance to run on devices powered by x86 processors, rather than RISC-based ARM chips.
Developers Ch ...
project provided support for x86 architectures ahead of the official support.
Since 2012, Android devices with
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
processors began to appear, including phones and tablets. While gaining support for 64-bit platforms, Android was first made to run on 64-bit x86 and then on
ARM64
AArch64 or ARM64 is the 64-bit extension of the ARM architecture family.
It was first introduced with the Armv8-A architecture. Arm releases a new extension every year.
ARMv8.x and ARMv9.x extensions and features
Announced in October 2011, AR ...
. An unofficial experimental port of the operating system to the
RISC-V
RISC-V (pronounced "risk-five" where five refers to the number of generations of RISC architecture that were developed at the University of California, Berkeley since 1981) is an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on establis ...
architecture was released in 2021.
Requirements for the minimum amount of
RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
...
for devices running Android 7.1 range from in practice 2 GB for best hardware, down to 1 GB for the most common screen. Android supports all versions of OpenGL ES and
Vulkan
Vulkan is a low- overhead, cross-platform API, open standard for 3D graphics and computing. Vulkan targets high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications, such as video games and interactive media. Vulkan is intended to offer higher perfo ...
(and version 1.1 available for some devices).
Android devices incorporate many optional hardware components, including still or video cameras,
GPS,
orientation sensors, dedicated gaming controls, accelerometers, gyroscopes, barometers,
magnetometer
A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...
s, proximity sensors,
pressure sensor
A pressure sensor is a device for pressure measurement of gases or liquids. Pressure is an expression of the force required to stop a fluid from expanding, and is usually stated in terms of force per unit area. A pressure sensor usually a ...
s, thermometers, and
touchscreen
A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
s. Some hardware components are not required, but became standard in certain classes of devices, such as smartphones, and additional requirements apply if they are present. Some other hardware was initially required, but those requirements have been relaxed or eliminated altogether. For example, as Android was developed initially as a phone OS, hardware such as microphones were required, while over time the phone function became optional.
Android used to require an
autofocus
An autofocus (or AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical syst ...
camera, which was relaxed to a
fixed-focus camera
if present at all, since the camera was dropped as a requirement entirely when Android started to be used on
set-top box
A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of s ...
es.
In addition to running on smartphones and tablets, several vendors run Android natively on regular PC hardware with a keyboard and mouse. In addition to their availability on commercially available hardware, similar PC hardware-friendly versions of Android are freely available from the Android-x86 project, including customized Android 4.4. Using the Android emulator that is part of the
Android SDK, or third-party emulators, Android can also run non-natively on x86 architectures. Chinese companies are building a PC and mobile operating system, based on Android, to "compete directly with Microsoft Windows and Google Android". The Chinese Academy of Engineering noted that "more than a dozen" companies were customizing Android following a Chinese ban on the use of Windows 8 on government PCs.
Development

Android is developed by Google until the latest changes and updates are ready to be released, at which point the
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...
is made available to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), an open source initiative led by Google.The first source code release happened as part of the initial release in 2007. All releases are under the
Apache License.
The AOSP code can be found with minimal modifications on select devices, mainly the former Nexus and current Android One series of devices. However, most original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) customize the source code to run on their hardware.
Android's source code does not contain the
device driver
In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and ...
s, often proprietary, that are needed for certain hardware components
, and does not contain the source code of
Google Play Services
Google Play Services is a proprietary software package produced by Google for installation on Android devices. It consists of background services and libraries for use by mobile apps running on the device When it was introduced in 2012, it pr ...
, which many apps depend on. As a result, most Android devices, including Google's own, ship with a combination of
free and open source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
and