Android Glossary
Here are some Android terms (some even with definitions!!)
See also the developer glossary at: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/glossary.html
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A
- adb
- Android Debug
- ADP1
- Android Developer Phone 1
- Android
- A robot resembling a human being - the name of the operating system produced by Google for mobile phones. Apparently, Andy Rubin, one of the original founders of Android, Inc. loves robots.
- Android, Inc.
- A company founded by Andy Rubin and others to create a mobile phone operating system. Android, Inc. was acquired by Google in 2005.
- ASE
- Android Scripting Environment
B
- Binder
- An Interprocess Communication (IPC) mechanism. See http://cs736-android.pbworks.com/IPC-Binder and http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/msg/dc0e0e872de9b0d2
- Bionic
- small C library used in Android devices
- Bootchart
- A mechanism to create visual charts of a Linux boot sequence, including the timing of process start and execution.
C,D
- Cupcake
- The code name for Android version 1.5.
- Dalvik
- Virtual Machine in which Android applications are run. This VM executes Dalvik bytecode, which is compiled from programs written in the Java language. Note that the Dalvik VM is not a Java VM (JVM).
- Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format by the included "dx" tool.
- Dream
- Code name for the mobile phone hardware publicly called the t-Mobile G1, in the United States.
F, G
- fastboot
- a program which communicates with the developer firmware, and which is capable of loading new software on the ADP1 phone (including re-writing the flash partitions on the device). See Android Fastboot
- FreeType
- An open-source set of fonts and font system
- G1
- The name of the first Android-based mobile phone, from t-Mobile.
- Goldfish
- The name of a virtual ARM platform provided by the emulator.
- Goldfish executes ARM926T instructions and has hooks for input and output -- such as reading key presses from or displaying video output in the emulator. There is a "goldfish" configuration file for compiling the Linux kernel to run with this emulated platform.
- A large web search company, and primary developer of Android
I
- init
- the first user-space program run in the Android system
- Intent
- A facility to send messages between different Android components. A message is conveyed using an Intent object, which is a data structure holding a description of an operation to be performed, or of something that has happened and is being announced.
J
- Java
- Java is a programming language originally developed by Sun, and used to develop Android applications.
- It is important to note that while the Java language is used for Android applications, the Java bytecode and Java virtual machine are not. for more information, see the entry for Dalvik.
- JDK
- Java Development Kit
L, M
- Linux
- An open source operating system kernel, developed originally by Linus Torvalds, but over time by many thousands of developers worldwide.
- Live-android
- A project to create an Android live-CD, for running Android on generic x86 platforms.
- MSM
- ???
O
- OpenGL ES
- 3D graphics system and API for Android applications
S
- Saphire
- SGL
- 2D graphics layer for Android applications
- SQLite
- A powerful and lightweight relational database engine used by the Android system components, and available to all Android applications.
T
- Trout
- ARM linux kernel machine ID for the HTC Dream hardware (used in the t-Mobile G1 and the ADP1)
- See http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/machines/list.php?id=1440
W
- wakelocks
- A kernel mechanism for Android power management. When a thread holds a wakelock, the kernel will refrain from entering a low-power state.
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