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Now that you know more about mobile apps, you'll be introduced to how a mobile operating system (OS) works. The most fundamental software for any mobile device is its OS. An OS is designed to coordinate communications that occur between the hardware and apps of mobile devices. Popular platforms such as Android and iOS provide a wide range of applications in addition to the built-in OS. Mobile operating systems A mobile OS typically starts up when a device powers on, displaying different application icons and user interface (UI) elements to users. The overall experience of the application and swiping or tapping is managed by the mobile OS. The function of mobile operating systems The major function of mobile operating systems is to allow smartphones, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other handheld devices to run applications. The OS provides a channel with which applications can access device resources such as the processor, memory, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and more. Most of the mobile operating systems in the market are based on open (Android) or closed source (iOS) software. Popular mobile operating systems Two of the most popular mobile operating systems are Android and iOS. Android Android is a mobile OS that was released in 2008. You’ll likely find that it is the base OS of most phones and tablets worldwide. Android OS is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, which is the foundation of the Linux computer OS and other open-source software. This is software that anyone can use or modify. The Android OS is built primarily for smartphones, Chromebook, Android TV, Android Auto, as well as wearables such as smartwatches. Android gives users a multitouch experience, which implies that all user input is via touch gesturing. Through several actions such as swiping, pulling and tapping, users can seamlessly interact with the screen. With built-in sensors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers, Android devices allow users to switch between the orientations of applications when tilting the devices. iOS iOS is Apple’s proprietary OS that runs on the iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices. iOS gives users a multitouch feel, meaning that all user input is via touch gesturing. Similar to Android, through several actions such as swiping, pulling and tapping, users can seamlessly interact with the screen. With built-in sensors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers, Apple devices allow users to switch between the orientations of applications when tilting the devices. With the rise in popularity of iOS, developers now have more controls and access to its features. After the release of iPhone 2.0, a software development kit (SDK) was introduced. This is a set of tools that allows developers to build apps for the OS. Due to huge improvements with iPhone OS 3.0, developers were then given more power with core location and push notifications. Finally, multitasking was introduced in iOS 4.0.

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Learn more Here is a list of additional reading material that may consolidate some of the knowledge you've gained so far and be helpful as you continue your learning journey. Introduction to the Android platform Android Platform Types and features of mobile operating systems Mobile operating systems Mobile app development platforms Mobile app development

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In order to get started with developing an app, you need a clear understanding of relevant concepts. So, as part of your introduction to Android Development, you will be introduced to a few concepts that will help get you started with development quickly and explore their roles in Android app development. Key Android Development concepts Top Level Component The ability to connect to the internet, make calls, take pictures and much more is made possible in Android apps with the help of four top-level component classes: BroadcastReceiver, ContentProvider, Service and Activity. These are all accessible in the Android software development kit (SDK). Activity Components Activities present the content users can interact with on the screen. These are the only components that deliver interactive content to the user. An Activity represents something an application can do. Although an application can provide more than one Activity, many developers are following a Single-Activity architecture pattern when creating their apps. This implies that only one Activity or a relatively small number of Activities are used for an entire application. Android Views In Android, Views occupy a rectangular area on the screen and are responsible for drawing and event handling. They can display images, text and more. A combination of all of these Views forms a design interface. Android Layout Files In Android, each layout is represented by an XML file. These plain text files serve as blueprints for the interface that your application presents to the user. In addition to the XML approach, there are other ways to create a user interface. For example, interfaces can be created with Android Views entirely in code using Kotlin or Java. Also, Google has created a completely new way of creating Android user interfaces - Jetpack Compose. With this library, interfaces are created entirely in Kotlin code, without XML. Project Files Android Project Files belong to one of three main categories: configuration, code and resource. Configuration files define the project structure, code files provide the logic and resource files provide essentially everything else.

In Android development, using Extensible Markup Language (XML) is one way you can develop your app's user interface (UI). Read on to find out more about XML, its functions and structure. What is XML? XML (Extensible Markup Language) is used in the presentation of different kinds of data. This is a flexible and descriptive way to create well-structured data and electronically distribute it across the public internet, as well as via corporate networks. Its main function is to create data formats that are used to encode information for documentation, records, transactions and several other data formats. Data presented using XML may be used for creating different data types that are generated by building dissimilar types of content, including web and mobile content. XML for transaction data Thousands of XML formats exist, in many different industries, to describe day-to-day data transactions, such as: Stocks and Shares Financial transactions Medical data Mathematical data Scientific measurements News information Weather services Structure of an XML document The whole structure of XML and XML-based languages is built on tags. Correct design rules For an XML document to be valid, the following conditions must be fulfilled: The document must be well formed. The document must comply with all the rules of the XML syntax. For example, the XML structure below is missing tag. For every opening tag, there must be a corresponding closing tag. The structure below violates that rule.