This is a list of features in the Android

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

General

; Messaging: SMS and MMS are available forms of messaging, including threaded

text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile phones, tablet computers, smartwatches, desktops/laptops, or ...

and Android Cloud To Device Messaging (C2DM) and now enhanced version of C2DM, Android Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is also a part of Android Push Messaging services. Android phones also have the ability to send and receive RCS via the messages app (if supported by the carrier). ; Autocorrection and Dictionary: Android features

autocorrection Autocorrection, also known as text replacement, replace-as-you-type, text expander or simply autocorrect, is an automatic data validation function commonly found in word processors and text editing interfaces for smartphones and tablet computer ...

, when any word is misspelled, then Android recommends the meaningful and correct words matching the words that are available in dictionary. Users can add, edit, and remove words from dictionary as per their wish. It is also possible to turn autocorrect off completely. ;Web browser: The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source Blink (previously

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine primarily used in Apple's Safari web browser, as well as all web browsers on iOS and iPadOS. WebKit is also used by the PlayStation consoles starting with the PS3, the Tizen mobile operating systems, the Amazon K ...

) layout engine, coupled with

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6 element, group 6. It is a steely-grey, Luster (mineralogy), lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium ...

's V8 JavaScript engine. Then the WebKit-using Android Browser scored 100/100 on the Acid3 test on Android 4.0 ICS; the Blink-based browser currently has better standards support. The old web browser is variably known as 'Android Browser', ' AOSP browser', 'stock browser', 'native browser', and 'default browser' (from the time it was always the default). Starting with Android 4.2, this browser was deprecated in favor of Google Chrome for Android. Since Android 5.0 Lollipop, the WebView browser that apps can use to display web content without leaving the app has been separated from the rest of the Android firmware in order to facilitate separate security updates by Google. ; Voice-based features: Google search through voice has been available since initial release. Voice actions for calling, texting, navigation, etc. are supported on Android 2.2 onwards. As of Android 4.1, Google has expanded Voice Actions with ability to talk back and read answers from Google's

Knowledge Graph In knowledge representation and reasoning, a knowledge graph is a knowledge base that uses a Graph (discrete mathematics), graph-structured data model or topology to represent and operate on data. Knowledge graphs are often used to store interl ...

when queried with specific commands. The ability to control hardware has not yet been implemented. The implementation of a AI chatbot is also present competing with many other companies. ; Multi-touch: Android has native support for

multi-touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one somatosensory system, point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CE ...

which was initially made available in handsets such as the HTC Hero. The feature was originally disabled at the kernel level (possibly to avoid infringing Apple's patents on touch-screen technology at the time). Google has since released an update for the Nexus One and the Motorola Droid which enables multi-touch natively. ; Multitasking: Multitasking of applications, with unique handling of memory allocation, is available. ; Screen capture: Android supports capturing a

screenshot A screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is an analog or digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by a (film) camera shooting the screen or the operating system An operating sys ...

by pressing the power and home-screen buttons at the same time. Prior to Android 4.0, the only methods of capturing a screenshot were through manufacturer and third-party customizations (apps), or otherwise by using a PC connection (DDMS developer's tool). These alternative methods are still available with the latest Android. ; TV recording: Android TV supports capturing and replaying TV recordings. ; Video calling: Android does not support native video calling, but some handsets have a customized version of the operating system that supports it, either via the

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...

network (like the Samsung Galaxy S) or over IP. Video calling through

Google Talk Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was also the name o ...

is available in Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) and later. Gingerbread allows Nexus S to place Internet calls with a SIP account. This allows for enhanced

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

dialing to other SIP accounts and even phone numbers. Skype 2.1 offers video calling in Android 2.3, including front camera support. Users with th
Google+ Android app
can perform video chat with other Google+ users throug
Hangouts
; Multiple language support: Android supports multiple languages. ; Accessibility: Built-in text-to-speech is provided by ''TalkBack'' for people with low or no vision. Enhancements for people with hearing difficulties are available, as are other aids.

Connectivity

; Connectivity: Android supports connectivity technologies including

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

/ EDGE,

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

, LTE,

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...

, EV-DO,

, NFC,

THAILAND Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

and

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMA ...

. ; Bluetooth: Supports voice dialing and sending contacts between phones, playing music, sending files ( OPP), accessing the phone book ( PBAP), A2DP and AVRCP. Keyboard, mouse and joystick ( HID) support is available in Android 3.1+, and in earlier versions through manufacturer customizations and third-party applications. ; Tethering: Android supports

tethering Tethering or phone-as-modem (PAM) is the sharing of a mobile device's cellular data connection with other connected computers. It effectively turns the transmitting device into a modem to allow others to use its cellular network as a gateway for ...

, which allows a phone to be used as a wireless/wired Wi-Fi hotspot. Before Android 2.2, this was supported by third-party applications or manufacturer customizations. Apple Ethernet Symbol

;Ethernet: Supports connecting internet to a phone via

ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

cable using a USB Type-C adapter.

Media

; Streaming media support: RTP/RTSP streaming 3GPP PSS, ISMA, HTML progressive download ( HTML tag). Adobe Flash Streaming (RTMP) and HTTP Dynamic Streaming are supported by the Flash plugin. Apple HTTP Live Streaming is supported by RealPlayer for Android, and by the operating system since Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). ; Media support: Android supports the following audio/video/still media formats:

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...

, H.263, H.264, AAC, HE-AAC (in 3GP or MP4

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

), MPEG-4 SP, AMR,

AMR-WB Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) is a patented Wideband audio, wideband speech coding, speech audio coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate audio codec, Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using a similar methodology to algebraic cod ...

(in 3GP container), MP3,

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

Ogg Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression, libvorbis. Vorbis is most common ...

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...

, WAV,

JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

, PNG,

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...

, BMP, and

WebP WebP is a raster graphics file format developed by Google intended as a replacement for JPEG, PNG, and GIF file formats. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, as well as animation and alpha transparency. Google announced the WebP ...

. ; External storage: Most Android devices include ultraSD card slots and can read microSD cards formatted with the

FAT32 File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers and was the default file system for the MS-DOS and Windows 9x operating systems. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on ...

Ext3 ext3, or third extended filesystem, is a journaling file system, journaled file system that is commonly used with the Linux kernel. It used to be the default file system for many popular Linux distributions but generally has been supplanted by ...

Ext4 ext4 (fourth extended filesystem) is a journaling file system for Linux, developed as the successor to ext3. ext4 was initially a series of backward-compatible extensions to ext3, many of them originally developed by Cluster File Systems for ...

file systems. To allow use of external storage media such as

USB flash drive A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...

s and USB HDDs, some Android devices are packaged with USB-OTG cables. Storage formatted with

is handled by the

Linux Kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

vFAT driver, while 3rd party solutions are required to handle some other file systems such as

NTFS NT File System (NTFS) (commonly called ''New Technology File System'') is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft in the 1990s. It was developed to overcome scalability, security and other limitations with File Allocation Tabl ...

HFS Plus HFS Plus or HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended or HFS Extended) is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It replaced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) as the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS 8. ...

and exFAT.

Hardware support

Android devices can include still/video cameras,

touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

s, GPS,

accelerometer An accelerometer is a device that measures the proper acceleration of an object. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change (mathematics), rate of change of velocity) of the object relative to an observer who is in free fall (tha ...

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining Orientation (geometry), orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in ...

barometer A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...

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, dedicated gaming controls, proximity and pressure sensors,

thermometer A thermometer is a device that measures temperature (the hotness or coldness of an object) or temperature gradient (the rates of change of temperature in space). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb ...

s, accelerated 2D

bit blit Bit blit (also written BITBLT, BIT BLT, BitBLT, Bit BLT, Bit Blt etc., which stands for ''bit block transfer'') is a data operation commonly used in computer graphics in which several bitmaps are combined into one using a ''boolean function''. Th ...

s (with hardware orientation, scaling, pixel format conversion) and accelerated 3D graphics.

Other

; Java support: While most Android applications are written in

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, there is a

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally descr ...

in the platform and Java byte code is not executed. Java classes are compiled into Dalvik executables and run on using

Android Runtime Android Runtime (ART) is an application runtime environment used by the Android operating system. Replacing Dalvik, the process virtual machine originally used by Android, ART performs the translation of some of the application's bytecode i ...

or in Dalvik in older versions, a specialized virtual machine designed specifically for Android and optimized for battery-powered mobile devices with limited memory and CPU. J2ME support can be provided via third-party applications. ; Handset layouts: The platform works for various screen sizes from smartphone sizes and to tablet size, and can potentially connect to an external screen, e.g. through

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...

, or wirelessly with

Miracast Miracast is a Wireless, wireless communications standard created by the Wi-Fi Alliance which is designed to transmit video and sound from devices (such as laptops or smartphones) to display receivers (such as TVs, monitors, or projectors). It uses ...

. Portrait and landscape orientations are supported and usually switching between by turning. A 2D graphics library,

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the purposes of perfor ...

library based on

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accelerate ...

2.0 specifications is used. ; Storage: SQLite, a lightweight

relational database A relational database (RDB) is a database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a type of database management system that stores data in a structured for ...

, is used for

data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

storage purposes. ; Native Apps: Android apps are also written in Kotlin ; Instant Apps: Android apps are hosted on a specific website path and load instead of the website itself. They are part-apps and load almost instantly without the need for an installation. One of the first apps being developed with such functionality is th
B&H
app. ;Desktop mode :

References