When Google announced the development of Android, the field of mobile platforms

was already well established. Even in the narrower category of open source platforms,

a number of viable alternatives were being pushed by proponents. Yet Android has

stimulated not only widespread technical interest but rampant speculation about its

potential to completely transform the world of the personal device. Instead of a convenient

prop to support a set of familiar functions, such as phone calls, email, and

restaurant lookups, the electronic device could become an open-ended window into

the whole world—could become, in short, anything that the user and the developer

could think to make it-Android Application Development