UNDERSTANDING ANDROID FOR DUMMIES

Android basics, architecture and how-to begin

First of all I want to keep clear this is just a way i liked to be introduced on Android, so let's begin.

Android as almost all of you know is a Operative system / platform which is oriented to different kind of devices as Cellphones Smartwatches and multimedia devices but not only, as we can find on this project: ArduinoDroid

I'm on android almost as the beging in 2006, so I can say how's is gonna evolving, then I'm gonna give you my favorites versions:

1.6, 2.3.3, 4.2.2, 5.1  

WHAT IS A ROM? 

A rom is a version of android sometimes customized and branded for different manufacturers, as an example if you use a Samsung Phone, the rom is android customized by samsung. 

For some reasons I always prefer the cyannogenMod roms... are awesome! 

take a look on: Cyannogenmod the ROOT and rom modifications  was my first approach in the way to be more than a simple user of Android, so please feel free to try, there are so many tutorials on Youtube and on developer's website of how to do it simple, in anycase you can always go back to your factory ROM (Usually means original factory firmware).

WHAT IS THE ANDROID ARCHITECTURE?  

This is the architecture shown usually when we talk about Android architecture, as we can advise on the bottom of the stack there is The linux Kernel, WHAT THIS MEANS? it means for example the partition for disk is gonna be as linux do it, or how the processor is gonna be managed or how the networking and hardware interfaces needs to be controlled (you know, camera, screen, mic,) , MapDetails of: KernelLinux  (that was weird if you don't what is computers architecture)

Going up on the stack there are the basics of an operative system, it means libraries and how is gonna run our applications, this is used in the way to create a kind of interface with the hardware so we cannot access directly to hardware (for security and dumb programmers XD )  then upper we finally find the application framework, FOR WHAT? because we need an environment for the applications we need to declare what we need from Android, and what we gonna do with android and other applications, did you ever heard about Manifest.xml? if not, don't worry later I'm gonna describe how applications are composed and what is necessary understand to mate the Android system with the apps!