Downloading and Installing the JRE

Before you begin downloading and installing Eclipse, you have to make sure you have the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) downloaded and installed on your machine. Because Eclipse as an application was written in Java, it requires the JRE to run. If the JRE is not installed or is not detected, you will see the following error if you try to open the Eclipse environment:

• If you are downloading to a Microsoft Windows environment, when you see the notification in the following illustration, click Run to begin the installation of the JDK.

• During the installation process, you will be prompted to read and accept the License Agreement, shown next. After agreeing to the standard License Agreement and clicking.Next, you will be able to select your custom setup options

• To keep the process simple, and fairly standardized, you should accept the suggested packages by default everything is selected—and continue the installation by clicking Next. When the Installation Completed page appears, shown in the following illustration, click Finish and your installation should be completed

• Once you complete the Java JDK installation—and by default the JRE installation—you can begin to install Eclipse.

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Introduction to Android

v Introduction

What is Android?

Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices, based on the Linux kernel, developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries. Applications written in C and other languages can be compiled to ARM native code and run, but this development path is not officially supported by Google.

The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 48 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache license, a free-software and open source license.

What is The Open Handset Alliance?

Open Handset Alliance, is a consortium of several companies which include Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel and NVIDIA, ... These companies which aim to develop technologies that will significantly lower the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. The Android platform is the first step in this direction -- a fully integrated mobile "software stack" that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications.

License

Android is under version 2 of the Apache Software License (ASL). The Apache license allows manufacturers and mobile operators to innovate using the platform without the requirement to contribute those innovations back to the open source community.

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