Android

Android

Android is the most used mobile device operating system in the world. In 2014, seven years after its launch, it equipped more than a billion smartphones (source: IDC). Rich in an ecosystem with 1.6 million applications (source: Statista) available through its Google Play app store, the mobile OS is the main competitor of Apple's iOS operating system.

It was in June 2007 that Android was launched by Google after the California giant acquired the startup Android Inc. in 2005. Based on a Linux kernel, Android is distributed under open source Apache license. Google makes it available free of charge to smartphone and tablet manufacturers who can customize their interface to distinguish their products from the competition. In return, they must comply with a technical specifications set by Google and integrate the main services of the North American giant (GMail, Maps, Google Now, Chrome ...).

This table and graph illustrates the number of Android versions and the percentage of mobile devices that are equipped with them (August 2015). © Google

The pros and cons of Android

This flexibility, which contrasts with Apple's total control over iOS, is both the strength and weakness of Android. Thanks to its openness, its compatibility with popular programming languages ​​(Java Development Kit) and its ability to reach a very wide audience by equipping both high-end phones and first price. Weakness because Android is fragmented into multiple versions, with no less than 16 iterations published between 2007 and 2015

This poses many problems of application compatibility and security. In 2015, there were more than 24,000 distinct Android devices offered by 1,294 brands (source: OpenSignal). That year, a major security breach called Stagefright, which potentially touched 95% of Android-powered devices, came as a stark illustration of this situation.

From 2014, Google began to decline Android to conquer new markets: Android TV for connected TVs, Android Auto for cars and Android Wear for connected watches.