Operating Systems: Android OS - Literature review Example

? Operating Systems: Android OS al Affiliation) The mobile marketplace is ever growing demands which need to be adequately addressed by the existing mobile platforms. Different parties in the mobile marketplace have different and unique needs such as mobile operators wanting to provide value added content to their customers in a lucrative and manageable way. Handset manufacturers are in need of a more secure, stable and affordable platforms to run their devices. Mobile developers on the other hand want to minimize roadblocks to their development of powerful applications demanded by the users. Up until the introduction of android there has not been a single mobile platform with the ability to adequately address all the needs of the parties involved in the mobile market. Android is considered a game changer in the mobile developer community since it is well placed to address the growing needs of the mobile marketplace. Introduction According to Haseman, Android is a Linux based operating system and a platform for which applications are developed. The Android operating system was originally designed and produced for touch screen mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones (2008). The android was originally released in 2007 and sold the first Android powered device in 2008. Android is open source software released under the Apache license and therefore the Android software can be freely modified and distributed by developers and device manufacturers. Being that android is a platform for application development in addition to the fact that it is open source, it has a large community of application developers presenting unlimited applications for the mobile devices running on android. The ease of application development on android platform has presented a variety of applications for mobile device customization which in turn has seen android as the most popularly used mobile platforms especially for Smartphones. The Android operating system has grown to be used on game console and television applications despite the fact that it was originally designed for tablets and mobile phones. The applications developed on android extend the functionality of the mobile devices (Haseman, 2008). Interface The user interface provides the display and the user control or command of the Android operating system. It gives the user the power to interact with the operating system directly by use of touch manipulation objects on the display. The display is supported by the fluid enabled interface designed to aid the interaction process between the user and the Operating System. The interface is fully-touch screen enabled with operations such as flicking your finger across the screen to flip to the next page of items. The user interface comes in several shapes and sizes. The user interface is also enabled by simple configuration applications that can make the text on screen appear bigger and clearer such as text size and screen size configuration preferences(Udell, 2009). Android Operating System user interface has a home-screen that hosts the operational application icons and widgets. Icons are graphic symbols that take up the commands to open up the application while widget displays the graphic user interface directly on the screen. The operational application icons and widgets displayed on the home-screen are known as Android views that include Context menu, Options menu, Digital clock and Web view. These applications offer additional options and links to different pages that are not directly visible on the main Menu driven interface on the home-screen. The menu applications also play a vital role in displaying information directing the user on what command it initiates. In addition, the Menu driven interface gives notice on notification messages (Hoog & McCash, 2011). Processes Process management is a distinctive operating system that uses several complex data structures and algorithms to process data on Android devices.  Android uses this data processing technique in control structures to look alike without additional effort, which is managed by a standard process management known as a process control block. Process control blocks are Android applications of which at the lowest form are Linux processes that include; Android Kernel processes, Zygote, and process priority, that are designed to determine how the processes “die” hence bringing about process management. The term “die” refers to the order in which processes are killed to reclaim other resources, that is actually determined by the priority of the hosted applications (Hoisington, 2013). The components making up these processes comprise of; Background processes: these are processes hosting activities that aren’t visible and that don’t have any Services that are initiated. Visible processes: from its name it is a process that hosts visible activities though it remains inactive. This process happens only when an activity is partially obscured either by non-full screen or transparent activity. Point to note is that there are very few visible processes and they are only killed in extreme situations to allow active processes to continue(Griss, 2012). Active processes: Active processes host’s applications with components currently interacting with the user by reclaiming resources. These processes are usually only killed as a last resort. Started service processes: these are processes hosting services that have been started. Services support processes always continue even without a visible interface because Services don’t interact directly with the user, they receive to some extent a lower priority than visible process activities. However, they are still considered to be foreground processes and won’t be killed unless resources are needed for active or visible processes. Empty Processes: Empty processes are tailored towards improving overall system performance such as retaining application's memory so as to improve start-up time of applications when they’re re-launched. These processes are more often than not killed as required (Griss, 2012). Synchronization Android operating systems can easily be synchronized to other gadgets and applications. As a product of the Open Handset Alliance led by Google, most Google productivity and Microsoft options are closely associated with Android phones therefore making synchronization very simple and easy. Synchronizing application is the use of sync software that connects the Android Smartphone to other devices for instance personal computers. Android phones for instance can be synchronized with personal computers for syncing e-mail and Microsoft outlook contact information, e-mails, music, calendar, photo albums and Wi-Fi. Furthermore, synchronization options are available on the configuration account sync options which follow very easy, simple steps on the Android gadget. On the other hand, there are other sync applications that can be used as discussed below (Udell, 2009). There is the Sync for Android software which is recorded as one of the best all encompassing sync software that keeps the Android phone in sync with Microsoft Outlook, Address Book, Windows Media Player and other Windows software applications. There is also the Go-Gadget for Android software that synchronizes movies, photos, and songs. It makes the Android gadgets to exploit the utility of easily exchanging media with other gadgets such as PC. Moreover, Go-Gadget syncs perfectly if the Android gadget is connected to the computer by use of a USB cable. By using USB cable, synchronization uses three simple steps which are connecting the gadget to the computer, choosing the media and finally one is able to sync. Another application is the flick application, which even makes synchronization overwhelmingly easy. The flick sync application gives the option that offers the fastest way to send and share contacts, notes, files, photos and songs among many others between Android gadgets and computers. Fliq is additionally considered fast as it can use Wi-Fi network to send files and information by just dragging and dropping what is to be sent. This is therefore what makes synchronization be termed simply as sync, send and share between Android gadgets and computers (Griss, 2012). Scheduling In Android management systems and programming, scheduling is the method by which processes, threads and data flow are programmed and given access to system applications. The Android scheduling system in this case uses Linux kernel’s scheduling mechanisms for formulating scheduling plans. There is the Normal scheduling; this means scheduling plans that involve static and dynamic priorities. Static priorities will assure that higher priority processes get more micro-processing time when needed compared to lower priority processes. On the contrary, low level priority tasks do not consume micro-processing time; it rather finds its dynamic priority increased. This dynamic performance hence results in a general enhanced responsiveness. Under normal scheduling, Android uses two different techniques when scheduling the Linux kernel to perform process management scheduling (Hoisington, 2013). They are; One, Real time scheduling which also has two real-time scheduling policies; a.) Main real-time policy that implements a first-in, first-out scheduling algorithm that continues to run until it voluntarily yields the processor, or is displaced by a higher-priority real-time task. At this time, supplementary tasks of lower priority will not be scheduled until it relinquishes the central processing unit (micro-processor). b.) Non-real-time scheduling policy; this follows the normal scheduling policy. Taking for example, in a real-time policy system, the scheduling application gives the text editor a higher priority and larger time slot than the video encoder because the text editor is interactive and also the text editor has plenty of time slot available. Furthermore, because the text editor has a higher priority, it is capable of displacing the video encoder when needed (Haseman, 2008). This ensures that the text editor is capable of responding to user key presses immediately which is to the disadvantage of the video encoder, but because the text editor only runs sporadically, the video encoder can have exclusive control of the remaining time. This therefore optimizes the performance of both applications. The second normal scheduling application on the other hand, is a binder priority mechanism that simply propagates priorities. Other scheduling techniques include the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) thread and process scheduling. These are collectively Android Unix processing programs most of which run on the Java Virtual Machine. The scheduling processes are usually multi threaded that uses two ways of changing scheduling priorities; the first one is by Calling Thread.setPriority which is part of the standard Java API (Application Programming Interface) that contains a value from minimum priority (1) to maximum priority (10). As all threads are processed, these priorities will be mapped to Unix process priorities with maximum priority being -8 and minimum priority 19. The second way of setting priorities is exercised by calling android.os.Process.setThreadPriority which allows for setting the priority to higher priorities thus declaring the process of thread priority to urgent display (Hoisington, 2013). Memory The Android operating system derives its memory capacity from Linux based operating system kernel, which is stripped down to handle most tasks appropriately. This therefore means that Android’s processes and memory management is quite strange because it uses its own run time and virtual machine to handle application memory, only if memory is needed. It ensures this application's reaction is by stopping and killing processes as needed to free resources for higher-priority applications. Every Android memory application management runs in a separate process within its own Dalvik (a registered-based virtual machine that has been optimized to ensure devices can run multiple instances efficiently by relying on Linux Kernel for threading and low-level memory management) releasing the entire responsibility for memory and process management to the Android run time, which then stops and kills processes as necessary to control memory resources. Dalvik and the Android run time are located on top of a Linux kernel that handles low-level hardware interaction including drivers and memory management, while a set of APIs provides access to all of the underlying features, hardware, and services (Haseman, 2008). Android also manages opened applications which are running in the background. This means that it closes the applications when the system needs more memory that to some extent boost the memory capacity. Some of the memory management applications include; auto-killer memory optimizer, auto-memory manager, V6 memory script and Android task management utilities, managing tasks running on the device, such as auto-task killer and auto-task manager. Android memory management hence uses an automated system that kills and manages memory for better performance as discussed in the previous topics on the processes and scheduling management (Hoisington, 2013). Security and privacy The Android operating system uses a strong security design and accurate security programs with a scheme tailored towards reducing security threats. It proves to be the most secure operating system for mobile phones due to the fact that it has operational security controls to protect system resources, user data protection, and provides for application isolation. It also has additional security features such as the use of the Linux Kernel OS, secure inter-process communication, mandatory application sandbox for all applications, application-defined and user-granted permissions, and lastly application signing and verification (Cardwell, 2011). Other user security features responsible for security management include the use of password protection, device administration, credential storage and virtual private network. User password protection is configured to authenticate a user-supplied password prior to obtaining access to the device. Credential storage includes an establishment of predefined or imported (CAs) certificate authorities trusted for operations such as establishing SSL connections within the browser. Device administration is provided by Android Device Administration API, that use device administrative features to enforce exchange support system password policies such as e-mail applications. Applications The Android Operating System uses several application software’s that run; and are hosted by the operating system. These applications use a platform of group of organizations collaborating and working on a daily basis to build and make improvements of the existing mobile phones. The group, known as the Open Handset Alliance, includes; Google mobile operators, device handset manufacturers, component manufacturers, marketing companies and software solution platform providers. In collaboration with this group Android created its own platform built upon a foundation of the Linux kernel that uses windows, icons and widgets (Stark, 2010). The applications are located in the application store that is either pre-installed; bought and installed from software solution providers; or can be downloaded and installed from third party software hosting sites. They include applications such as Opera-mini Application store, Amazon Application store, or Google Play amongst others. These are the Android applications ensuring and enabling authorization security tools to seek specific permission in order to reduce the likelihood of an undesired application that can cause damage to the device. Conclusion In summary, Androids use is not only limited to mobile applications but can also be customized for use in a variety of gadgets such as Televisions, laptops, cameras among others. Its viability and use beyond phone is proving to be a success because of its sophisticated way of operation on gadgets and automation technology to control devices. Users can hence look forward to the next versions of Android that are of improved reliability, and with more advanced management driven features. If at all Android manufacturers fully take this path, it would be advantageous for the company to focus on developing improved operating system software and also a plus to Android users. References Cardwell, G. S. (2011). Residual network data structures in Android devices. Monterey, Calif.: Naval Postgraduate School. Eddy, J., & Eddy, P. D. (2009). Google on the go: using an Android-powered mobile phone. Indianapolis, Ind.: Que. Griss, M. (2012). Mobile computing, applications, and services second International ICST Conference, MobiCASE 2010, Santa Clara, CA, USA, October 25-28, 2010, Revised selected papers. Berlin: Springer. Haseman, C. (2008). Android essentials. Berkeley, CA: Apress. Hoisington, C. (2013). Android Boot Camp for developers using Java, comprehensive: a beginner's guide to creating your first Android Apps. Boston, Mass.: Course Technology Cengage Learning. Hoog, A., & McCash, J. (2011). Android forensics investigation, analysis, and mobile security for Google Android. Waltham, MA: Syngress. Udell, S. (2009). Pro web gadgets across iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, iGoogle and more. Berkeley, Calif.: Apress. Read More