Android Versions

Android has gone through quite a number of updates since its fi rst release. Table 1-1 shows the
various versions of Android and their code names.

                                      TABLE 1-1: A Brief History of Android Versions
ANDROID VERSION                        RELEASE DATE                                  CODE NAME

1.1 9                                                     February 2009
1.5                                                        30 April 2009                                       Cupcake
1.6                                                        15 September 2009                              Donut
2.0/2.1                                                  26 October 2009                                  Eclair
2.2                                                        20 May 2010                                        Froyo
2.3                                                        6 December 2010                                 Gingerbread
3.0/3.1/3.2                                            22 February 2011                                 Honeycomb
4.0                                                        19 October 2011                                  Ice Cream Sandwich
4.02                                                       9 July 2012                                          Jelly Bean
4.4                                                         31 October 2013                                 KitKat

In February 2011, Google released Android 3.0, a tablet-only release supporting widescreen devices.
The key changes in Android 3.0 are as follows.
➤ New user interface optimized for tablets
➤ 3D desktop with new widgets
➤ Refined multi-tasking
➤ New web browser features, such as tabbed browsing, form auto-fi ll, bookmark, synchronization, and private browsing
➤ Support for multi-core processors
Applications written for versions of Android prior to 3.0 are compatible with Android 3.0 devices,
and they run without modifications. Android 3.0 tablet applications that make use of the newer
features available in 3.0, however, will not be able to run on older devices. To ensure that an Android
tablet application can run on all versions of devices, you must programmatically ensure that you only
make use of features that are supported in specific versions of Android.
In October 2011, Google released Android 4.0, a version that brought all the features introduced in
Android 3.0 to smartphones, along with some new features such as facial recognition unlock, data
usage monitoring and control, Near Field Communication (NFC), and more.