Gamevice, Inc. (formerly Wikipad, Inc. ) is a Simi Valley , California based tablet and tablet peripherals manufacturer specializing in gaming products.
110-611: The debut product was the Wikipad, a proprietary Android tablet hardware engineered for mobile gaming , which featured a detachable controller. Gamevice later came to market with a peripheral-only product, rebranded under the name, Gamevice. The company was founded by Matthew Joynes, James Bower, and Brendan Iribe. Appointing the current CEO Phillip Hyun. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on January 10, 2012,
220-410: A native development kit (NDK) for applications or extensions in C or C++, Google App Inventor , a visual environment for novice programmers, and various cross platform mobile web applications frameworks . In January 2014, Google unveiled a framework based on Apache Cordova for porting Chrome HTML 5 web applications to Android, wrapped in a native application shell. Additionally, Firebase
330-524: A task switcher in Intel 80386 assembly language and a terminal driver . On 25 August 1991, Torvalds posted the following to comp.os.minix , a newsgroup on Usenet : I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since April, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of
440-451: A version control system thus far, in 2002, Linux developers adopted BitKeeper , which was made freely available to them even though it was not free software . In 2005, because of efforts to reverse-engineer it, the company which owned the software revoked its support of the Linux community. In response, Torvalds and others wrote Git . The new system was written within weeks, and in two months
550-408: A weather forecast , the user's email inbox, or a news ticker directly on the home screen. A home screen may be made up of several pages, between which the user can swipe back and forth. Third-party apps available on Google Play and other app stores can extensively re- theme the home screen, and even mimic the look of other operating systems, such as Windows Phone . Most manufacturers customize
660-568: A Linux Kernel Code of Conflict was introduced on 8 March 2015. It was replaced on 16 September 2018 by a new Code of Conduct based on the Contributor Covenant . This coincided with a public apology by Torvalds and a brief break from kernel development. On 30 November 2018, complying with the Code of Conduct , Jarkko Sakkinen of Intel sent out patches replacing instances of "fuck" appearing in source code comments with suitable versions focused on
770-399: A PC and mobile operating system, based on Android, to "compete directly with Microsoft Windows and Google Android". The Chinese Academy of Engineering noted that "more than a dozen" companies were customizing Android following a Chinese ban on the use of Windows 8 on government PCs. Android is developed by Google until the latest changes and updates are ready to be released, at which point
880-441: A bit in that more features were made available throughout the series, including support for Bluetooth , Logical Volume Manager (LVM) version 1, RAID support, InterMezzo and ext3 file systems. Version 2.6.0 was released on 17 December 2003. The development for 2.6. x changed further towards including new features throughout the series. Among the changes that have been made in the 2.6 series are: integration of μClinux into
990-694: A choice of non-default runtimes that allow better C++ support. The SDK includes a comprehensive set of development tools, including a debugger , software libraries , a handset emulator based on QEMU , documentation, sample code, and tutorials. Initially, Google's supported integrated development environment (IDE) was Eclipse using the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin; in December 2014, Google released Android Studio , based on IntelliJ IDEA , as its primary IDE for Android application development. Other development tools are available, including
1100-402: A fluid touch interface, often using the vibration capabilities of the device to provide haptic feedback to the user. Internal hardware, such as accelerometers , gyroscopes and proximity sensors are used by some applications to respond to additional user actions, for example adjusting the screen from portrait to landscape depending on how the device is oriented, or allowing the user to steer
1210-569: A keyboard and mouse. In addition to their availability on commercially available hardware, similar PC hardware-friendly versions of Android are freely available from the Android-x86 project, including customized Android 4.4. Using the Android emulator that is part of the Android SDK , or third-party emulators, Android can also run non-natively on x86 architectures. Chinese companies are building
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#17330849293141320-564: A press conference in a New York City subway station . Since 2008, Android has seen numerous updates which have incrementally improved the operating system, adding new features and fixing bugs in previous releases. Each major release is named in alphabetical order after a dessert or sugary treat, with the first few Android versions being called " Cupcake ", " Donut ", " Eclair ", and " Froyo ", in that order. During its announcement of Android KitKat in 2013, Google explained that "Since these devices make our lives so sweet, each Android version
1430-632: A range of other electronics, such as game consoles , digital cameras , portable media players , and PCs , each with a specialized user interface. Some well-known derivatives include Android TV for televisions and Wear OS for wearables , both developed by Google. Software packages on Android, which use the APK format, are generally distributed through proprietary application stores like Google Play Store , Amazon Appstore , Samsung Galaxy Store , Huawei AppGallery , Cafe Bazaar , GetJar , and Aptoide , or open source platforms like F-Droid . Android has been
1540-483: A roadmap, there are technical guidelines. Instead of a central resource allocation, there are persons and companies who all have a stake in the further development of the Linux kernel, quite independently from one another: People like Linus Torvalds and I don’t plan the kernel evolution. We don’t sit there and think up the roadmap for the next two years, then assign resources to the various new features. That's because we don’t have any resources. The resources are all owned by
1650-469: A split-screen view mode are the 2012 Samsung Galaxy S3 and Note 2 , the former of which received this feature with the premium suite upgrade delivered in TouchWiz with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. When connecting or disconnecting charging power and when shortly actuating the power button or home button, all while the device is powered off, a visual battery meter whose appearance varies among vendors appears on
1760-506: A study issued by the Linux Foundation, covering the commits for the releases 4.8 to 4.13, about 1500 developers were contributing from about 200–250 companies on average. The top 30 developers contributed a little more than 16% of the code. For companies, the top contributors are Intel (13.1%) and Red Hat (7.2%), Linaro (5.6%), IBM (4.1%), the second and fifth places are held by the 'none' (8.2%) and 'unknown' (4.1%) categories. Instead of
1870-430: A vehicle in a racing game by rotating the device, simulating control of a steering wheel . Android devices boot to the home screen , the primary navigation and information "hub" on Android devices, analogous to the desktop found on personal computers. Android home screens are typically made up of app icons and widgets ; app icons launch the associated app, whereas widgets display live, auto-updating content, such as
1980-507: A whole lot like the program has wrapped up". From 2008 to 2013, Hugo Barra served as product spokesperson, representing Android at press conferences and Google I/O , Google's annual developer-focused conference. He left Google in August 2013 to join Chinese phone maker Xiaomi . Less than six months earlier, Google's then- CEO Larry Page announced in a blog post that Andy Rubin had moved from
2090-508: Is Android which is used in many mobile and embedded devices. Most of the kernel code is written in C as supported by the GNU compiler collection (GCC) which has extensions beyond standard C. The code also contains assembly code for architecture-specific logic such as optimizing memory use and task execution. The kernel has a modular design such that modules can be integrated as software components – including dynamically loaded. The kernel
2200-544: Is monolithic in an architectural sense since the entire OS runs in kernel space . Linux is provided under the GNU General Public License version 2 , although it contains files under other compatible licenses . In April 1991, Linus Torvalds, a 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Helsinki started working on an operating system, inspired by UNIX, for a personal computer. He started with
2310-491: Is a monolithic kernel rather than a microkernel was the topic of a debate between Andrew S. Tanenbaum , the creator of MINIX, and Torvalds. The Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate started in 1992 on the Usenet group comp.os.minix as a general discussion about kernel architectures. Version 0.95 was the first capable of running the X Window System . In March 1994, Linux 1.0.0 was released with 176,250 lines of code. As indicated by
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#17330849293142420-640: Is expanding its low-cost Android One program into the United States, although The Verge notes that the company will presumably not produce the actual devices itself. Google introduced the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones in October 2016, marketed as being the first phones made by Google, and exclusively featured certain software features, such as the Google Assistant , before wider rollout. The Pixel phones replaced
2530-529: Is known as the Android Open Source Project ( AOSP ) and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License . However, most devices run the proprietary Android version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed, most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS), which includes core apps such as Google Chrome ,
2640-438: Is low, the system will begin invisibly and automatically closing inactive processes, starting with those that have been inactive for the longest amount of time. Lifehacker reported in 2011 that third-party task-killer applications were doing more harm than good. Some settings for use by developers for debugging and power users are located in a "Developer options" sub menu, such as the ability to highlight updating parts of
2750-426: Is named after a dessert", although a Google spokesperson told CNN in an interview that "It's kind of like an internal team thing, and we prefer to be a little bit—how should I say—a bit inscrutable in the matter, I'll say". In 2010, Google launched its Nexus series of devices, a lineup in which Google partnered with different device manufacturers to produce new devices and introduce new Android versions. The series
2860-541: Is significantly responsible for rising use of Linux overall. The cost to redevelop version 2.6.0 of the Linux kernel in a traditional proprietary development setting has been estimated to be US$ 612 million (€467M, £394M) in 2004 prices using the COCOMO person-month estimation model. In 2006, a study funded by the European Union put the redevelopment cost of kernel version 2.6.8 higher, at €882M ($ 1.14bn, £744M). This topic
2970-512: Is the latest version and includes improvements specific to foldable phones , tablets, desktop -sized screens , and Chromebooks . Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California , in October 2003 by Andy Rubin , Rich Miner , Nick Sears, and Chris White. Rubin described the Android project as having "tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences". The early intentions of
3080-693: Is the primary application store installed on Android devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements and license the Google Mobile Services software. Google Play Store allows users to browse, download and update applications published by Google and third-party developers; as of January 2021 , there are more than three million applications available for Android in Play Store. As of July 2013 , 50 billion application installations had been performed. Some carriers offer direct carrier billing for Google Play application purchases, where
3190-470: Is used by default), and adoptable storage. Portable storage is treated as an external storage device. Adoptable storage, introduced on Android 6.0, allows the internal storage of the device to be spanned with the SD card, treating it as an extension of the internal storage. This has the disadvantage of preventing the memory card from being used with another device unless it is reformatted . Android 4.4 introduced
3300-638: The Amazon Appstore , GetJar , and SlideMe. F-Droid , another alternative marketplace, seeks to only provide applications that are distributed under free and open source licenses . In October 2020, Google removed several Android applications from Play Store , as they were identified breaching its data collection rules. The firm was informed by International Digital Accountability Council (IDAC) that apps for children like Number Coloring , Princess Salon and Cats & Cosplay , with collective downloads of 20 million, were violating Google's policies. At
3410-536: The Android software development kit (SDK) and, often, Kotlin programming language, which replaced Java as Google's preferred language for Android app development in May 2019, and was originally announced in May 2017. Java is still supported (originally the only option for user-space programs, and is often mixed with Kotlin), as is C++ . Java or other JVM languages, such as Kotlin, may be combined with C /C++, together with
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3520-594: The Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL), User-mode Linux integration into the mainline kernel sources, SELinux integration into the mainline kernel sources, InfiniBand support, and considerably more. Starting with 2.6.x releases, the kernel supported a large number of file systems; some designed for Linux, like ext3 , ext4 , FUSE , Btrfs , and others native to other operating systems like JFS , XFS , Minix, Xenix , Irix , Solaris , System V , Windows and MS-DOS . Though development had not used
3630-581: The Open Handset Alliance , a consortium of technology companies including Google, device manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint and T-Mobile , and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments , unveiled itself, with a goal to develop "the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices". Within a year, the Open Handset Alliance faced two other open source competitors,
3740-556: The Symbian Foundation and the LiMo Foundation , the latter also developing a Linux -based mobile operating system like Google. In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony. On September 23, 2008, Android was introduced by Andy Rubin, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Cole Brodman, Christopher Schlaeffer and Peter Chou at
3850-509: The United States . On October 10, 2019, the lawsuit against Nintendo ended, alleging the U.S. International Trade Commission has determined to affirm the conclusion of the presiding administrative law judge's initial determination that no violation of Section 337 has occurred. On March 27, 2020, Gamevice filed a new patent-infringement lawsuit at the USITC against Nintendo in addition to appealing
3960-729: The Windows 11 announcement event in June 2021, Microsoft showcased the new Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) to enable support for the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), but it has since been deprecated. It was meant to allow users running Android apps and games in Windows 11 on their Windows desktop. On March 5, 2024, Microsoft announced deprecation of WSA with support ending on March 5, 2025. The storage of Android devices can be expanded using secondary devices such as SD cards . Android recognizes two types of secondary storage: portable storage (which
4070-1058: The atomic CMPXCHG instruction introduced with the i486 to allow reliable mutexes —making the 3.7 kernel series the last one still supporting the original processor. The same series unified support for the ARM processor. The numbering change from 2.6.39 to 3.0, and from 3.19 to 4.0, involved no meaningful technical differentiation; the major version number was increased simply to avoid large minor numbers. Stable 3.x.y kernels were released until 3.19 in February 2015. Version 3.11, released on 2 September 2013, added many new features such as new O_TMPFILE flag for open(2) to reduce temporary file vulnerabilities, experimental AMD Radeon dynamic power management, low-latency network polling, and zswap (compressed swap cache). In April 2015, Torvalds released kernel version 4.0. By February 2015, Linux had received contributions from nearly 12,000 programmers from more than 1,200 companies, including some of
4180-400: The digital distribution platform Google Play , and the associated Google Play Services development platform. Firebase Cloud Messaging is used for push notifications. While AOSP is free, the "Android" name and logo are trademarks of Google, which imposes standards to restrict the use of Android branding by "uncertified" devices outside their ecosystem. Over 70% of smartphones based on
4290-566: The global operating system market , followed by Windows with 26%. Android has historically been developed by a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance , but its most widely used version is primarily developed by Google . It was unveiled in November 2007, with the first commercial Android device, the HTC Dream , being launched in September 2008. At its core, the operating system
4400-523: The source code is made available to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), an open source initiative led by Google. The first source code release happened as part of the initial release in 2007. All releases are under the Apache License . The AOSP code can be found with minimal modifications on select devices, mainly the former Nexus and current Android One series of devices. However, most original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) customize
4510-511: The "core," including architecture-specific code, kernel code, and mm code, while 60% is drivers. Contributions are submitted as patches, in the form of text messages on the Linux kernel mailing list (LKML) (and often also on other mailing lists dedicated to particular subsystems). The patches must conform to a set of rules and to a formal language that, among other things, describes which lines of code are to be deleted and what others are to be added to
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4620-568: The "ftp.funet.fi" – FTP server of the Finnish University and Research Network ( FUNET ). It was not even executable since its code still needed Minix to compile and test it. On 5 October 1991, Torvalds announced the first "official" version of Linux, version 0.02. [As] I mentioned a month ago, I'm working on a free version of a Minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage where it's even usable (though may not be depending on what you want), and I am willing to put out
4730-737: The AMD Radeon FreeSync and NVIDIA Xavier display, fixes for F2FS , EXT4 and XFS , restored support for swap files on the Btrfs file system and continued work on the Intel Icelake Gen11 graphics and on the NXP i.MX8 SoCs. This release was noticeably larger than the rest, Torvalds mentioning that "The overall changes for all of the 5.0 release are much bigger." A total of 1,991 developers, of whom 334 were first-time collaborators, added more than 553,000 lines of code to version 5.8, breaking
4840-515: The Android Open Source Project run Google's ecosystem (which is known simply as Android), some with vendor-customized user interfaces and software suites, such as TouchWiz and later One UI by Samsung and HTC Sense . Competing ecosystems and forks of AOSP include Fire OS developed by Amazon , ColorOS by Oppo , OriginOS by Vivo , MagicUI by Honor , and custom ROMs such as LineageOS , as well as Meta Horizon OS for VR headsets . Android's source code has been used to develop variants on
4950-531: The Android division to take on new projects at Google, and that Sundar Pichai would become the new Android lead. Pichai himself would eventually switch positions, becoming the new CEO of Google in August 2015 following the company's restructure into the Alphabet conglomerate, making Hiroshi Lockheimer the new head of Android. On Android 4.4 , KitKat , shared writing access to MicroSD memory cards has been locked for user-installed applications, to which only
5060-514: The Android version and manufacturer. Many early Android OS smartphones were equipped with a dedicated search button for quick access to a web search engine and individual apps' internal search feature. More recent devices typically allow the former through a long press or swipe away from the home button. The dedicated option key, also known as menu key, and its on-screen simulation, is no longer supported since Android version 10. Google recommends mobile application developers to locate menus within
5170-420: The European Union. As of 7 March 2011 , using then-current LOC (lines of code) of a 2.6.x Linux kernel and wage numbers with David A. Wheeler's calculations it would cost approximately $ 3bn (about €2.2bn) to redevelop the Linux kernel as it keeps getting bigger. An updated calculation as of 26 September 2018 , using then-current 20,088,609 LOC (lines of code) for the 4.14.14 Linux kernel and
5280-464: The Gamevice controller was developed by RKS Design . Gamevice is a detachable controller with a classic D-pad ; twin triggers; A, B, X, and Y buttons; and dual analog sticks . On January 31, 2017, a new Gamevice controller was released for the iPhone 7 . On February 15, 2018, Gamevice announced and launched a Minecraft -themed controller bundle, which includes a Gamevice controller, a carrying case for
5390-540: The Linux 2.2.13 code for the support of the S/390 architecture. Version 2.4.0, released on 4 January 2001, contained support for ISA Plug and Play , USB , and PC Cards . Linux 2.4 added support for the Pentium 4 and Itanium (the latter introduced the ia64 ISA that was jointly developed by Intel and Hewlett-Packard to supersede the older PA-RISC ), and for the newer 64-bit MIPS processor. Development for 2.4. x changed
5500-617: The Linux kernel for its OS. Torvalds labeled the kernel with major version 0 to indicate that it was not yet intended for general use. Version 0.11, released in December 1991, was the first version to be self-hosted ; compiled on a computer running the Linux kernel. When Torvalds released version 0.12 in February 1992, he adopted the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) over his previous self-drafted license, which had not permitted commercial redistribution. In contrast to Unix , all source files of Linux are freely available, including device drivers . The initial success of Linux
5610-634: The Nexus series, with a new generation of Pixel phones launched in October 2017. In May 2019, the operating system became entangled in the trade war between China and the United States involving Huawei , which, like many other tech firms, had become dependent on access to the Android platform. In the summer of 2019, Huawei announced it would create an alternative operating system to Android known as Harmony OS , and has filed for intellectual property rights across major global markets. Under such sanctions Huawei has long-term plans to replace Android in 2022 with
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#17330849293145720-493: The SAF to access any other part of the filesystem. Since Android devices are usually battery-powered, Android is designed to manage processes to keep power consumption at a minimum. When an application is not in use the system suspends its operation so that, while available for immediate use rather than closed, it does not use battery power or CPU resources. Android manages the applications stored in memory automatically: when memory
5830-479: The Storage Access Framework (SAF), a set of APIs for accessing files on the device's filesystem. As of Android 11, Android has required apps to conform to a data privacy policy known as scoped storage , under which apps may only automatically have access to certain directories (such as those for pictures, music, and video), and app-specific directories they have created themselves. Apps are required to use
5940-472: The Wikipad was shown with both a 2D and a glasses-free 3D -enabled device. In May 2012, Gaikai , a cloud gaming service which Sony acquired two months later in July 2012, partnered with Wikipad, Inc. to integrate its streaming service into the tablet. The Wikipad was originally scheduled for an October 31, 2011 release, but was delayed indefinitely on the day it was originally supposed to be released. The Wikipad
6050-402: The Wikipad's screen size and intentions as nice, saying it had "its heart in the right place", but decided that the lack of compelling Android games, high launch price, and outdated specs and software limited the appeal of the device. IGN gave the Wikipad poor reviews taking into consideration the lack of games in its library, flimsy construction, and software that was considered dated, even at
6160-453: The ability to adjust the flashlight brightness. Notifications are "short, timely, and relevant information about your app when it's not in use", and when tapped, users are directed to a screen inside the app relating to the notification. Beginning with Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" , "expandable notifications" allow the user to tap an icon on the notification in order for it to expand and display more information and possible app actions right from
6270-456: The change will either be submitted as a single patch or in multiple patches of source code . In case of a single subsystem that is maintained by a single maintainer, these patches are sent as e-mails to the maintainer of the subsystem with the appropriate mailing list in Cc. The maintainer and the readers of the mailing list will review the patches and provide feedback. Once the review process has finished
6380-432: The company in July of that year for at least $ 50 million; this was Google's "best deal ever" according to Google's then-vice president of corporate development, David Lawee , in 2010. Android's key employees, including Rubin, Miner, Sears, and White, joined Google as part of the acquisition. Not much was known about the secretive Android Inc. at the time, with the company having provided few details other than that it
6490-513: The company were to develop an advanced operating system for digital cameras , and this was the basis of its pitch to investors in April 2004. The company then decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its goals, and five months later it had diverted its efforts and was pitching Android as a handset operating system that would rival Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile . Rubin had difficulty attracting investors early on, and Android
6600-646: The controller and a download code for Minecraft on iOS . In August 2017, Gamevice filed a lawsuit against Nintendo in the United States District Court for the Central District of California , alleging that the design of the Nintendo Switch conflicts with its patent on the design for the Wikipad . The lawsuit sought damages on existing Switch sales and banning further sales of the console. The lawsuit
6710-555: The cost of the application is added to the user's monthly bill. As of May 2017 , there are over one billion active users a month for Gmail, Android, Chrome, Google Play and Maps. Due to the open nature of Android, a number of third-party application marketplaces also exist for Android, either to provide a substitute for devices that are not allowed to ship with Google Play Store, provide applications that cannot be offered on Google Play Store due to policy violations, or for other reasons. Examples of these third-party stores have included
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#17330849293146820-413: The current US national average programmer salary of $ 75,506 show that it would cost approximately $ 14,725,449,000 (£11,191,341,000) to rewrite the existing code. Most who use Linux do so via a Linux distribution . Some distributions ship the vanilla or stable kernel. However, several vendors (such as Red Hat and Debian ) maintain a customized source tree. These are usually updated at a slower pace than
6930-511: The dedicated directories with respective package names, located inside Android/data/ , remained writeable. Writing access has been reinstated with Android 5 Lollipop through the backwards-incompatible Google Storage Access Framework interface . In June 2014, Google announced Android One , a set of "hardware reference models" that would "allow [device makers] to easily create high-quality phones at low costs", designed for consumers in developing countries. In September, Google announced
7040-567: The display, show an overlay with the current status of the touch screen, show touching spots for possible use in screencasting , notify the user of unresponsive background processes with the option to end them ("Show all ANRs", i.e. "App's Not Responding"), prevent a Bluetooth audio client from controlling the system volume ("Disable absolute volume"), and adjust the duration of transition animations or deactivate them completely to speed up navigation. Developer options are initially hidden since Android 4.2 "Jelly Bean", but can be enabled by actuating
7150-530: The file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things). I've currently ported bash (1.08) and gcc (1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months [...] Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable [ sic ] (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. On 17 September 1991, Torvalds prepared version 0.01 of Linux and put on
7260-416: The first official kernel made using it was released. In 2005 the stable team was formed as a response to the lack of a kernel tree where people could work on bug fixes , and it would keep updating stable versions. In February 2008 the linux-next tree was created to serve as a place where patches aimed to be merged during the next development cycle gathered. Several subsystem maintainers also adopted
7370-573: The first set of Android One phones for release in India. However, Recode reported in June 2015 that the project was "a disappointment", citing "reluctant consumers and manufacturing partners" and "misfires from the search company that has never quite cracked hardware". Plans to relaunch Android One surfaced in August 2015, with Africa announced as the next location for the program a week later. A report from The Information in January 2017 stated that Google
7480-437: The issue. Android's default user interface is mainly based on direct manipulation , using touch inputs that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching, and reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects, along with a virtual keyboard . Game controllers and full-size physical keyboards are supported via Bluetooth or USB . The response to user input is designed to be immediate and provides
7590-581: The kernel community at the 2017 Embedded Linux Conference Europe. The issues brought up were discussed a few days later at the Maintainers Summit. Concerns over the lack of consistency in how maintainers responded to patches submitted by developers were echoed by Shuah Khan , the maintainer of the kernel self-test framework. Torvalds contended that there would never be consistency in the handling of patches because different kernel subsystems have, over time, adopted different development processes. Therefore, it
7700-570: The kernel so that old programs would work. Version 3.0 was released on 22 July 2011. On 30 May 2011, Torvalds announced that the big change was "NOTHING. Absolutely nothing." and asked, "...let's make sure we really make the next release not just an all new shiny number, but a good kernel too." After the expected 6–7 weeks of the development process, it would be released near the 20th anniversary of Linux. On 11 December 2012, Torvalds decided to reduce kernel complexity by removing support for i386 processors—specifically by not having to emulate
7810-406: The kernel with system software (e.g., the GNU C Library , systemd , and other Unix utilities and daemons ) and a wide selection of application software , but their usage share in desktops is low in comparison to other operating systems. Since Android , which is Linux, accounts for the majority of mobile device operating systems, and due to its rising use in embedded devices , Android
7920-467: The linux.conf.au (LCA) conference in 2018, developers expressed the view that the culture of the community has gotten much better in the past few years. Daniel Vetter, the maintainer of the Intel drm/i915 graphics kernel driver, commented that the "rather violent language and discussion" in the kernel community has decreased or disappeared. Laurent Pinchart asked developers for feedback on their experiences with
8030-559: The look and features of their Android devices to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Along the top of the screen is a status bar, showing information about the device and its connectivity. This status bar can be pulled (swiped) down from to reveal a notification screen where apps display important information or updates, as well as quick access to system controls and toggles such as display brightness, connectivity settings ( WiFi , Bluetooth, cellular data), audio mode, and flashlight . Vendors may implement extended settings such as
8140-537: The mainline kernel sources, PAE support, support for several new lines of CPUs , integration of Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) into the mainline kernel sources, support for up to 2 users (up from 2 ), support for up to 2 process IDs (64-bit only, 32-bit architectures still limited to 2 ), substantially increased the number of device types and the number of devices of each type, improved 64-bit support, support for file systems which support file sizes of up to 16 terabytes , in-kernel preemption , support for
8250-481: The mobile communications market continued to build through December 2006. An early prototype had a close resemblance to a BlackBerry phone, with no touchscreen and a physical QWERTY keyboard , but the arrival of 2007's Apple iPhone meant that Android "had to go back to the drawing board". Google later changed its Android specification documents to state that "Touchscreens will be supported", although "the Product
8360-607: The most common screen. Android supports all versions of OpenGL ES and Vulkan (and version 1.1 available for some devices ). Android devices incorporate many optional hardware components, including still or video cameras, GPS , orientation sensors , dedicated gaming controls, accelerometers, gyroscopes, barometers, magnetometers , proximity sensors, pressure sensors , thermometers, and touchscreens . Some hardware components are not required, but became standard in certain classes of devices, such as smartphones, and additional requirements apply if they are present. Some other hardware
8470-475: The most used operating system worldwide on smartphones since 2011 and on tablets since 2013. As of May 2021 , it has over three billion monthly active users , the largest installed base of any operating system in the world, and, as of 2024 , the Google Play Store features 1.7 million apps; a decline from its of peak of over 3 million apps in April 2021. Android 15 , released on October 15, 2024,
8580-513: The new operating system, as Harmony OS was originally designed for internet of things devices, rather than for smartphones and tablets. On August 22, 2019, it was announced that Android "Q" would officially be branded as Android 10, ending the historic practice of naming major versions after desserts. Google stated that these names were not "inclusive" to international users (due either to the aforementioned foods not being internationally known, or being difficult to pronounce in some languages). On
8690-409: The notification. An "All Apps" screen lists all installed applications, with the ability for users to drag an app from the list onto the home screen. The app list may be accessed using a gesture or a button, depending on the Android version. A "Recents" screen, also known as "Overview", lets users switch between recently used apps. The recent list may appear side-by-side or overlapping, depending on
8800-546: The official support. Since 2012, Android devices with Intel processors began to appear, including phones and tablets. While gaining support for 64-bit platforms, Android was first made to run on 64-bit x86 and then on ARM64 . An unofficial experimental port of the operating system to the RISC-V architecture was released in 2021. Requirements for the minimum amount of RAM for devices running Android 7.1 range from in practice 2 GB for best hardware, down to 1 GB for
8910-526: The operating system's build number in the device information seven times. Hiding developers options again requires deleting user data for the "Settings" app, possibly resetting some other preferences. The main hardware platform for Android is ARM (the ARMv7 and ARMv8-A architectures), with x86 and x86-64 architectures also officially supported in later versions of Android. The unofficial Android-x86 project provided support for x86 architectures ahead of
9020-572: The previous case that it lost. It ended in favor of Nintendo. Android (operating system) Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen -based mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets . It is the world's most widely used operating system due to it being used on most smartphones and tablets outside of iPhones and iPads , which use Apple 's iOS and iPadOS , respectively. As of October 2024 , Android accounts for 45% of
9130-536: The previous kernel version. The Git kernel source tree names all developers who have contributed to the Linux kernel in the Credits directory and all subsystem maintainers are listed in Maintainers . As with many large open-source software projects, developers are required to adhere to the Contributor Covenant , a code of conduct intended to address harassment of minority contributors. Additionally, to prevent offense
9240-525: The record previously held by version 4.9. According to the Stack Overflow's annual Developer Survey of 2019, more than the 53% of all respondents have developed software for Linux and about 27% for Android , although only about 25% develop with Linux-based operating systems. Most websites run on Linux-based operating systems , and all of the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers use some form of OS based on Linux. Linux distributions bundle
9350-520: The same day, Android Police reported that Google had commissioned a statue of a giant number "10" to be installed in the lobby of the developers' new office. Android 10 was released on September 3, 2019, to Google Pixel phones first. In late 2021, some users reported that they were unable to dial emergency services. The problem was caused by a combination of bugs in Android and in the Microsoft Teams app; both companies released updates addressing
9460-419: The screen, allowing the user to quickly assess the charge status of a powered-off without having to boot it up first. Some display the battery percentage. Most Android devices come with preinstalled Google apps including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Chrome, YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, and others. Applications (" apps "), which extend the functionality of devices (and must be 64-bit ), are written using
9570-531: The source code to run on their hardware. Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open source , UNIX-like kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system (OS) which was created to be a free replacement for Unix . Since the late 1990s, it has been included in many operating system distributions , many of which are called Linux . One such Linux kernel operating system
9680-562: The sources for wider distribution. It is just version 0.02...but I've successfully run bash, gcc, gnu-make, gnu-sed, compress, etc. under it. Linux grew rapidly as many developers, including the MINIX community, contributed to the project. At the time, the GNU Project had completed many components for its free UNIX replacement, the GNU OS , but its kernel, GNU Hurd , was incomplete. The project adopted
9790-437: The specified files. These patches can be automatically processed so that system administrators can apply them in order to make just some changes to the code or to incrementally upgrade to the next version. Linux is distributed also in GNU zip (gzip) and bzip2 formats. A developer who wants to change the Linux kernel writes and tests a code change. Depending on how significant the change is and how many subsystems it modifies,
9900-407: The subsystem maintainer accepts the patches in the relevant Git kernel tree. If the changes to the Linux kernel are bug fixes that are considered important enough, a pull request for the patches will be sent to Torvalds within a few days. Otherwise, a pull request will be sent to Torvalds during the next merge window. The merge window usually lasts two weeks and starts immediately after the release of
10010-456: The suffix -next for trees containing code which they mean to submit for inclusion in the next release cycle. As of January 2014 , the in-development version of Linux is held in an unstable branch named linux-next . The 20th anniversary of Linux was celebrated by Torvalds in July 2011 with the release of version 3.0.0. As 2.6 had been the version number for 8 years, a new uname26 personality that reports 3.x as 2.6.40+x had to be added to
10120-406: The time of the device's release. It concludes that "The Wikipad is a mostly failed attempt at turning an Android tablet into a gaming handheld." An aggregation of reviews done by Engadget shows the average review score of the Wikipad among critics to be 58/100. In January 2014, Wikipad, Inc. announced a new controller called Gamevice to expand its mobile device coverage. The industrial design for
10230-495: The user interface. On more recent phones, its place is occupied by a task key used to access the list of recently used apps when actuated. Depending on device, its long press may simulate a menu button press or engage split screen view, the latter of which is the default behaviour since stock Android version 7. Native support for split screen view has been added in stock Android version 7.0 Nougat . The earliest vendor-customized Android-based smartphones known to have featured
10340-407: The vanilla branch, and they usually include all fixes from the relevant stable branch, but at the same time they can also add support for drivers or features which had not been released in the vanilla version the distribution vendor started basing its branch from. The community of Linux kernel developers comprises about 5000–6000 members. According to the "2017 State of Linux Kernel Development",
10450-444: The various corporations who use and contribute to Linux, as well as by the various independent contributors out there. It's those people who own the resources who decide... Notable conflicts among Linux kernel developers: Prominent Linux kernel developers have been aware of the importance of avoiding conflicts between developers. For a long time there was no code of conduct for kernel developers due to opposition by Torvalds. However,
10560-949: The version number, it was the first version considered suitable for a production environment . In June 1996, after release 1.3, Torvalds decided that Linux had evolved enough to warrant a new major number, and so labeled the next release as version 2.0.0. Significant features of 2.0 included symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), support for more processors types and support for selecting specific hardware targets and for enabling architecture-specific features and optimizations. The make *config family of commands of kbuild enable and configure options for building ad hoc kernel executables ( vmlinux ) and loadable modules. Version 2.2, released on 20 January 1999, improved locking granularity and SMP management, added m68k , PowerPC , Sparc64 , Alpha , and other 64-bit platforms support. Furthermore, it added new file systems including Microsoft 's NTFS read-only capability. In 1999, IBM published its patches to
10670-700: The word 'hug'. Developers who feel treated unfairly can report this to the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board. In July 2013, the maintainer of the USB 3.0 driver Sage Sharp asked Torvalds to address the abusive commentary in the kernel development community. In 2014, Sharp backed out of Linux kernel development, saying that "The focus on technical excellence, in combination with overloaded maintainers, and people with different cultural and social norms, means that Linux kernel maintainers are often blunt, rude, or brutal to get their job done". At
10780-516: The world's largest software and hardware vendors. Version 4.1 of Linux, released in June 2015, contains over 19.5 million lines of code contributed by almost 14,000 programmers. Linus Torvalds announced that kernel version 4.22 would instead be numbered 5.0 in March 2019, stating that "'5.0' doesn't mean anything more than that the 4.x numbers started getting big enough that I ran out of fingers and toes." It featured many major additions such as support for
10890-434: Was acquired by Google in 2014 that provides helpful tools for app and web developers. Android has a growing selection of third-party applications, which can be acquired by users by downloading and installing the application's APK (Android application package) file, or by downloading them using an application store program that allows users to install, update, and remove applications from their devices. Google Play Store
11000-445: Was agreed upon that each kernel subsystem maintainer would document the rules for patch acceptance. Linux is evolution, not intelligent design ! The kernel source code, a.k.a. source tree, is managed in the Git version control system – also created by Torvalds. As of 2021 , the 5.11 release of the Linux kernel had around 30.34 million lines of code. Roughly 14% of the code is part of
11110-490: Was described as having "played a pivotal role in Android's history by introducing new software iterations and hardware standards across the board", and became known for its " bloat-free " software with "timely ... updates". At its developer conference in May 2013, Google announced a special version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 , where, instead of using Samsung's own Android customization, the phone ran "stock Android" and
11220-472: Was designed with the presence of discrete physical buttons as an assumption, therefore a touchscreen cannot completely replace physical buttons". By 2008, both Nokia and BlackBerry announced touch-based smartphones to rival the iPhone 3G , and Android's focus eventually switched to just touchscreens. The first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream , also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23, 2008. On November 5, 2007,
11330-487: Was driven by programmers and testers across the world. With the support of the POSIX APIs, through the libC that, whether needed, acts as an entry point to the kernel address space, Linux could run software and applications that had been developed for Unix. On 19 January 1992, the first post to the new newsgroup alt.os.linux was submitted. On 31 March 1992, the newsgroup was renamed comp.os.linux . The fact that Linux
11440-432: Was facing eviction from its office space. Steve Perlman , a close friend of Rubin, brought him $ 10,000 in cash in an envelope, and shortly thereafter wired an undisclosed amount as seed funding. Perlman refused a stake in the company, and has stated "I did it because I believed in the thing, and I wanted to help Andy." In 2005, Rubin tried to negotiate deals with Samsung and HTC . Shortly afterwards, Google acquired
11550-586: Was initially required, but those requirements have been relaxed or eliminated altogether. For example, as Android was developed initially as a phone OS, hardware such as microphones were required, while over time the phone function became optional. Android used to require an autofocus camera, which was relaxed to a fixed-focus camera if present at all, since the camera was dropped as a requirement entirely when Android started to be used on set-top boxes . In addition to running on smartphones and tablets, several vendors run Android natively on regular PC hardware with
11660-466: Was making software for mobile phones. At Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel . Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system. Google had "lined up a series of hardware components and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation". Speculation about Google's intention to enter
11770-683: Was promised to receive new system updates fast. The device would become the start of the Google Play edition program, and was followed by other devices, including the HTC One Google Play edition, and Moto G Google Play edition. In 2015, Ars Technica wrote that "Earlier this week, the last of the Google Play edition Android phones in Google's online storefront were listed as "no longer available for sale" and that "Now they're all gone, and it looks
11880-406: Was released on June 11, 2013, in the United States with a price tag of $ 249. In March 2014, a game control mapping tool was announced for the Wikipad to help map touchscreen game controls to the physical Wikipad controller in an effort to improve gameplay. Also in March, the price of the Wikipad dropped to $ 199. In June 2014, OnLive cloud gaming support was added to the Wikipad. Eurogamer rated
11990-509: Was revisited in October 2008 by Amanda McPherson, Brian Proffitt, and Ron Hale-Evans. Using David A. Wheeler's methodology, they estimated redevelopment of the 2.6.25 kernel now costs $ 1.3bn (part of a total $ 10.8bn to redevelop Fedora 9). Again, Garcia-Garcia and Alonso de Magdaleno from University of Oviedo (Spain) estimate that the value annually added to kernel was about €100M between 2005 and 2007 and €225M in 2008, it would cost also more than €1bn (about $ 1.4bn as of February 2010) to develop in
12100-591: Was voluntarily dismissed by Gamevice in October 2017. However, in March 2018, Gamevice initiated a second patent infringement lawsuit on Nintendo related to a different set of patents. Gamevice also sought action through the United States International Trade Commission related to patent infringement under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 , and was seeking to block imports of the Switch into
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