Android OS : Core Concepts Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy Sr. Lecturer University of Texas at Dallas [email protected]
Dec 11, 2015
Android OS : Core Concepts
Dr. Jeyakesavan VeerasamySr. Lecturer
University of Texas at [email protected]
Agenda
• Introduction to Android devices• Environment overview• Android concepts• Application components– Activities, Services, Content providers, Broadcast
receivers• “Hello” application• Summary
Development Environment
• Java Development Kit (JDK) • Eclipse IDE• Android Development Tools (ADT) plug-in• SDK starter package– Platforms (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.1, …)– Tools (debug, …)
Reference: http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html
JDK
Eclipse ADTPlug-in
AndroidSDK
Android Runtime Environment
• Dalvik VM for each application• common Linux kernel
JRE
x.class y.class
Linux kernel
VM VM
APP APP…
Application Security
• Android operating system is based on multi-user Linux system.
• Each application is treated as a different user. Each application uses unique Linux user ID.
• Every application runs as a Linux process.
Application security …
• It's possible to arrange for two applications to share the same Linux user ID, in which case they are able to access each other's files – can run as same Linux process and share the same VM (applications use same certificate).
• An application can request permission to access device data such as the user's contacts, SMS messages, the mountable storage (SD card), camera, Bluetooth, and more. All application permissions must be granted by the user at install time.
Processes & Threads
• Every application runs in its own process and all components of the application run in that process, by default -- UI thread
• Any slow, blocking operations in an activity should be done in a new thread, to avoid slowing down the user interface.– If application does not respond in 5 seconds, "
application not responding" (ANR) dialog appears.
Process lifecycle: Importance Hierarchy
• Foreground process• Visible process• Service process• Background process• Empty process
“Lower importance” tasks may be killed by Android – why?How to select a lucky one from a pool?
Android Application components
• Activities - front-end UI screens• Services – back-end support• Content providers – application data – SQLite, web or SD card
• Broadcast receivers – handle system events
Basics: Data Exchange
• Binary or text data XML or JSON …
• Independent data checkers tools available.A1
A3
A2
A4
Sample XML data file
Text format:Belgian Waffles, 5.95, two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real … , 650Strawberry Belgian Waffles, 7.95, light Belgian waffles covered with …., 900
Application info: Manifest file
• Declare components• Declare application requirements• Application Resources?
XML Layouts
• Declare UI elements in XML. Android provides a straightforward XML vocabulary that corresponds to the View classes and subclasses.
• Instantiate layout elements at runtime. Your application can create View and ViewGroup objects (and manipulate their properties) programmatically.
Native Development Kit (NDK)
• Use C/C++ for development• primarily for performance critical components
Summary
• Clean, sophsticated, yet reasonably simple.• Android requires strong Java skills – heavy use of
derived classes (inheritance).• Development: Java code & XML definitions• Reference: http://
developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html• Install Android development environment and
play with a few examples or try your own ideas!• Marketable skill in the industry!
More references
• http://www.vogella.de/articles/AndroidIntent/article.html• http://developer.android.com/resources/browser.html?tag=sa
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