Android is a Linux based open source mobile operating system which is developed by Google which uses Linux Kernel and you can call a complete Mobile / Smartphone Operating System. Android has got Google Play store where you can download thousands of Applications, Games, Music, watch Movies, read Magazines. You can do multi-tasking easily with Android. Below the screenshot of an Android 4.2.2 running Galaxy Nexus home screen.
The first Android based handset was released in October 2008. Which was T-Mobile G1 was made by famous handset / smartphone manufacturer HTC and known by HTC Dream as well. T-Mobile G1 was only marketed by the network T-Mobile.
Android has got different version until now after it was released. All the versions were codenamed after desserts which we are going to learn in this post.
The first version of Android was released was 1.0 the 1.1 and after that Google started code naming the android versions. Android version 1.5 Cupcake was released with the ability to record video in G1. The next version was 1.6 which is called Donut then 2.0, 2.0.1 and 2.1 version is is called Eclair. The significant development came on version 2.2 and 2.2.3 Froyo, gave faster performance, less boot up time and doubled the speed. Gingerbread came as a version 2.3.xx. The last version of Gingerbread branch is 2.3.7.
Then Google released Android version 3.0 Honeycomb which was only released for Tablets and later published some more developed version as 3.1 and 3.2 but didn’t change the code name. Now most Google-TV enabled devices uses Honeycomb version.
As the new versions were coming out and getting more new and exclusive features, device development hasn’t stopped yet but got further developed and as a result coming out more nicely developed, optimized, faster and higher speced phones.
Android version 4.0 is called Ice Cream Sandwich released with Google Galaxy Nexus where Google implemented the Face Unlock feature for the first time in the world. As like as the previous versions this Ice Cream Sandwich has also got different sub-versions like 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4.
The latest and current version of Android is called Jelly Bean which is from version 4.1 Google started calling it Jelly Bean and all the way down to 4.2.2. This is a version where Google didn’t change a lot of thing but implemented ‘Project Butter’. Made the version butter smooth feeling and a lot faster than any other android versions. Version 4.2 was released with LG Nexus 4 the 4th Google phone.
Android 5.0 was confirmed by Google as upcoming Android update codenamed Key Lime Pie. Android 5.0 will be the successor of Ice Cream Sandwich 4.x. We are waiting to see what Google has got in its sleeve to give us in Key Lime Pie Android version 5.
This is the current Google Play store and how it looks like from a Jelly Bean running device.