Android OS is gaining ground slowly

Android OS is gaining ground slowly

The Android OS took the IT world by surprise when it was first introduced by Google back in 2007. In those days, the market was still filled with other operating systems and devices.

Today it has become one of the most successful and dominant OS. It also has supports from key players drawn from the renowned communication, hardware and software conglomerate. To date Google possessed digital applications of 400,000 different apps and were downloaded 10 billion times since its launch in 2008.

Due to its apparent success has led Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android Inc. and senior Vice President of Mobile at Google to declare 3.7 million android devices activated between December 24 and 25, in 2011 alone.  Currently there are about 700,000 daily worldwide activations of android devices.

A marketing and advertising company, Nielsen recently conducted a study as regards to the usage of mobile operating systems by global mobile phone owners. The study found that Google’s Android shares about 42.8 percent  percent of the market while Apple’s iOS followed behind with 28.3 percent, RIM’s BlackBerry with a 17.8 percent share, 1.7 percent share for Symbian OS and 1.2 percent for Microsoft Windows Phone 7 OS.

Historical Android

Android is indeed both a fascinating and flexible OS, it can run virtually on any devices, oooppss! actually it runs on smartphones, laptops, tablets, netbooks or ultrabooks, e-book readers, TVs some wristwatch such as the I’m Watch, on car CD and DVD players, digital cameras, portable media players and many other devices.

After obtaining Android Inc. in 2005, Google quickly set up Open Handset Alliance Consortium containing 84 different communications and hardware firms to develop standard for mobile devices.

The very first version of Android powered HTC’s Dream (also known as the T-Mobile G1) smartphone in September 23, 2008. Even at its infancy the OS has support for Google services integration, an internet browser, online store for downloading apps, software updates, support for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless network, instant messaging and multitasking applications.

Since then there was no turning around for Android, Google subsequently released versions of Android drawing from names of sweets – Cupcake (version 1.5), Donut (version 1.6), Eclair (Version 2.0), Froyo (version 2.2) and Gingerbread (version 2.3).

With the emergence of various top-notched tablets, Google released its next generation OS, the HoneyComb (version 3.0) on May 10^th 2011. Google’s latest OS, dubbed as Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4.0) was offered to some select devices in late 2011. The Android ICS OS is regarded as a ground-breaking jump in terms of OS design – it is not an upgrade because it brings together the Graphical User Interface (GUI) between smartphones and tablet devices. It has facial recognition unlock support, photography improvement and information sharing utilizing NFC (Near Field Communication) to wirelessly transfer files between various compatible devices.

User behavior

On another study conducted by Nielsen regarding user behavior, it found that users’ concentrations are mainly on Google services – with 89 percent of them running Android market, 79 percent running Gmail, 74 percent on Google Maps, and 73 percent use Google Search service.  Facebook is at 72 percent and followed by Youtube at 53 percent. The Angry Bird game received only 27  percent.

Based on the same study, it found that most users favor messaging applications while spending more time on Facebook, for example instant messaging applications such as Handset SMS, GO SMS Pro, Gmail and Words With Friends were used 1,059 times a day. Users usually run Facebook with the average time of 2 hours and 46 minutes each day. The distribution is 62 percent females and 38 percent males.

The study also clearly shows that smartphones no longer function as a mere communication tool. Users only spend 3 percent of the overall usage time for talking on the device while the greater  percentage of it is used on Facebook apps at 40 percent with 28 percent on gaming and 12 percent for Internet browsing and another 17 percent for other activities. The smartphone has proved to be an effective device for entertainment, communication, Internet browsing and even work.

The Android OS platform is offered on all smartphone levels – entry level, mid-range and high-end, therefore it is accessible and at the same time affordable to most users. There are some 400,000 different applications available on Android’s digital Market and the monthly volume has peaked to one billion downloads, a clear indication of Android’s growing popularity.

This growing trend can be traced to the existence of a large numbers of diverse applications, matching users’ needs; some even comes free or on a very low price while others offer valuable services. Though Google celebrated its 10 billionth downloads in December 2011 as compared to only 6 billion downloads in June 2010, Apple still leads at 18 billion downloads in December 2011.

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Android OS is gaining ground slowly