This is a list of features in the

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

General

; Messaging:

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

and MMS are available forms of messaging, including threaded

text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/ laptops, or another type of compatible compu ...

and Android Cloud To Device Messaging (C2DM) and now enhanced version of C2DM, Android Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is also a part of Android Push Messaging services. Android phones also have the ability to send and receive RCS via the messages app (if supported by the carrier). ; Autocorrection and Dictionary: Android has an feature called autocorrection. When any word is misspelled, then Android recommends the meaningful and correct words matching the words that are available in dictionary. Users can add, edit, and remove words from dictionary as per their wish. ;Web browser: The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source Blink (previously

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the ...

) layout engine, coupled with

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and h ...

's V8 JavaScript engine. Then the WebKit-using Android Browser scored 100/100 on the Acid3 test on Android 4.0 ICS; the Blink-based browser currently has better standards support. The old web browser is variably known as 'Android Browser', ' AOSP browser', 'stock browser', 'native browser', and 'default browser' (from the time it was always the default). Starting with Android 4.4 KitKat, Google has begun licensing

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macO ...

(a proprietary software) separately from Android, but usually bundled with (what most device vendors did). Since Android 5.0 Lollipop, the WebView browser that apps can use to display web content without leaving the app has been separated from the rest of the Android firmware in order to facilitate separate security updates by Google. ; Voice-based features: Google search through voice has been available since initial release. Voice actions for calling, texting, navigation, etc. are supported on Android 2.2 onwards. As of Android 4.1, Google has expanded Voice Actions with ability to talk back and read answers from Google's

Knowledge Graph The Google Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base from which Google serves relevant information in an infobox beside its search results. This allows the user to see the answer in a glance. The data is generated automatically from a variety of so ...

when queried with specific commands. The ability to control hardware has not yet been implemented. ; Multi-touch: Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets such as the HTC Hero. The feature was originally disabled at the kernel level (possibly to avoid infringing Apple's patents on touch-screen technology at the time). Google has since released an update for the Nexus One and the

Motorola Droid The Motorola Droid ( GSM/UMTS version: Motorola Milestone) is an Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphone designed by Motorola, which runs Google's Android operating system. The Droid had been publicized under the codenames ''Sholes'' and ''Tao' ...

which enables multi-touch natively. ; Multitasking: Multitasking of applications, with unique handling of memory allocation, is available. ; Screen capture: Android supports capturing a

screenshot screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display. Additionally, s ...

by pressing the power and home-screen buttons at the same time. Prior to Android 4.0, the only methods of capturing a screenshot were through manufacturer and third-party customizations (apps), or otherwise by using a PC connection (DDMS developer's tool). These alternative methods are still available with the latest Android. ; TV recording: Android TV supports capturing :and replaying it. ; Video calling: Android does not support native video calling, but some handsets have a customized version of the operating system that supports it, either via the

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the In ...

network (like the Samsung Galaxy S) or over IP. Video calling through Google Talk is available in Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) and later. Gingerbread allows Nexus S to place Internet calls with a SIP account. This allows for enhanced

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Interne ...

dialing to other SIP accounts and even phone numbers. Skype 2.1 offers video calling in Android 2.3, including front camera support. Users with th
Google+ Android app
can perform video chat with other Google+ users throug
Hangouts
; Multiple language support: Android supports multiple languages. ; Accessibility: Built-in text-to-speech is provided by ''TalkBack'' for people with low or no vision. Enhancements for people with hearing difficulties are available, as are other aids.

Connectivity

; Connectivity: Android supports connectivity technologies including GSM/ EDGE,

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limit ...

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a telephone and mobile broadband standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement *** LTE Advanced Pro * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers produced by Compaq * ...

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication ...

, EV-DO,

, NFC,

THAILAND Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

and

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMA ...

. ; Bluetooth: Supports voice dialing and sending contacts between phones, playing music, sending files ( OPP), accessing the phone book ( PBAP),

A2DP In order to use Bluetooth, a device must be compatible with the subset of Bluetooth ''profiles'' (often called services or functions) necessary to use the desired services. A Bluetooth profile is a specification regarding an aspect of Bluetooth-b ...

and AVRCP. Keyboard, mouse and joystick ( HID) support is available in Android 3.1+, and in earlier versions through manufacturer customizations and third-party applications. ; Tethering: Android supports tethering, which allows a phone to be used as a wireless/wired Wi-Fi hotspot. Before Android 2.2, this was supported by third-party applications or manufacturer customizations.

Media

; Streaming media support: RTP/RTSP streaming 3GPP PSS, ISMA, HTML progressive download ( HTML5 tag). Adobe Flash Streaming (RTMP) and HTTP Dynamic Streaming are supported by the Flash plugin. Apple HTTP Live Streaming is supported by RealPlayer for Android, and by the operating system since Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). ; Media support: Android supports the following audio/video/still media formats:

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video and the HTML5 audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponso ...

H.263 H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bit-rate compressed format for videotelephony. It was standardized by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) in a project ending in 1995/1996. It is a member of the H.26x fam ...

, H.264, AAC, HE-AAC (in

3GP 3GP (3GPP file format) is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones. 3G2 (3GPP2 ...

or MP4 container), MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB (in 3GP container),

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, an ...

, Ogg Vorbis,

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software p ...

, WAV,

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and im ...

, PNG, GIF, BMP, and WebP. ; External storage: Most Android devices include microSD card slots and can read microSD cards formatted with the

FAT32 File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by ...

, Ext3 or

Ext4 ext4 (fourth extended filesystem) is a journaling file system for Linux, developed as the successor to ext3. ext4 was initially a series of backward-compatible extensions to ext3, many of them originally developed by Cluster File Systems fo ...

file systems. To allow use of external storage media such as

USB flash drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since fir ...

s and USB HDDs, some Android devices are packaged with

USB-OTG USB On-The-Go (USB OTG or just OTG) is a specification first used in late 2001 that allows USB devices, such as tablets or smartphones, to act as a host, allowing other USB devices, such as USB flash drives, digital cameras, mouse or keyboards ...

cables. Storage formatted with

is handled by the

Linux Kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...

vFAT driver, while 3rd party solutions are required to handle some other file systems such as

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred f ...

, HFS Plus and exFAT.

Hardware support

Android devices can include still/video cameras,

touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...

s, GPS,

accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acce ...

s, gyroscopes,

barometer A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, o ...

s, dedicated gaming controls,

proximity Proximity may refer to: * Distance, a numerical description of how far apart objects are * Proxemics, the study of human spatial requirements and the effects of population density * Proximity (2000 film), ''Proximity'' (2000 film), an action/thril ...

and

pressure sensor A pressure sensor is a device for pressure measurement of gases or liquids. Pressure is an expression of the force required to stop a fluid from expanding, and is usually stated in terms of force per unit area. A pressure sensor usually a ...

thermometer A thermometer is a device that measures temperature or a temperature gradient (the degree of hotness or coldness of an object). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb of a mercury-in-glass thermomete ...

s, accelerated 2D

bit blit Bit blit (also written BITBLT, BIT BLT, BitBLT, Bit BLT, Bit Blt etc., which stands for ''bit block transfer'') is a data operation commonly used in computer graphics in which several bitmaps are combined into one using a '' boolean function''. T ...

s (with hardware orientation, scaling, pixel format conversion) and accelerated 3D graphics.

Other

; Java support: While most Android applications are written in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

, there is no

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describ ...

in the platform and Java byte code is not executed. Java classes are compiled into Dalvik executables and run on using Android Runtime or in Dalvik in older versions, a specialized virtual machine designed specifically for Android and optimized for battery-powered mobile devices with limited memory and CPU.

J2ME Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for embedded and mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, TV set-top ...

support can be provided via third-party applications. ; Handset layouts: The platform works for various screen sizes from smartphone sizes and to tablet size, and can potentially connect to an external screen, e.g. through

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controll ...

, or wirelessly with

Miracast Miracast (also called screen mirroring and wireless display among other names on consumer devices) is a standard for wireless connections from sending devices (such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones) to display receivers (such as TVs, monitors, o ...

. Portrait and landscape orientations are supported and usually switching between by turning. A 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library based on

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-ac ...

2.0 specifications is used. ; Storage: SQLite, a lightweight

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

, is used for

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

storage purposes. ; Native Apps: Android apps are also written in HTML. ; Instant Apps: Android apps are hosted on a specific website path and load instead of the website itself. They are part-apps and load almost instantly without the need for an installation. One of the first apps being developed with such functionality is th
B&H
app.

References