Android mobile phones are a recent addition to the smartphone market. If you have never heard the term, a smartphone is a mobile phone that offers users features and applications and is really a lot closer to a pocket computer than it is to an ordinary mobile phone. Users can do everything from surf the internet to play mobile games to send emails.
But to perform any of these actions you need to download applications. Applications are nothing more than mini computer programmes. They can be downloaded from various sites for prices ranging from free to a few pounds per application.
Since the Android phone is a relative newcomer, there are far fewer android applications available for download. By comparison, the iPhone has tens of thousands of applications at the App Store, whereas there are only a few thousand Android applications.
Perhaps that is why Android allows, even encourages users to write and develop their own applications and then to submit them to the Android Market. Android even provides a development kit to help users design their own applications. These applications are then available for download through the application library.
This comes as a welcomed change for smartphone users who have never been able to create their own applications because of rigid proprietary rules. What we mean is that most smartphone companies will not allow users to design their own applications because they fear it might hurt sales. But since the Android platform is not owned by any one phone maker, they have no rules governing application creation.
