Android Interview Questions and Answers (Updated)

What is Android?

Android is free and open source operating system that is mainly used on mobile devices like tablets and Smartphones. Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. The Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language. What is Android Architecture?

Android Architecture consists of 5 main elements

Applications Application Framework Android runtime Libraries Linux Kernel

What is API Level?

API Level is an integer value that uniquely identifies the framework API revision offered by a version of the Android platform.

The Android platform provides a framework API that applications can use to interact with the underlying Android system. The framework API consists of:

A set of Intents A core set of packages and classes A set of XML elements and attributes for declaring a manifest file A set of XML elements and attributes for declaring and accessing resources A set of permissions that applications can request, as well as permission enforcements included in the system

What is NDK?

The NDK (Native Development Kit) provides all the tools (compilers, libraries, and header files) to build apps that access the device natively. Native code (in C/C++) is necessary for high performance to overcome the limitations in Java's memory management and performance.

Android apps are typically written in Java, with its elegant object-oriented design. However, at times, you need to overcome the limitations of Java, such as memory management and performance, by programming directly into Android native interface. Android provides Native Development Kit (NDK) to support native development in C/C++, besides the Android Software Development Kit (Android SDK) which supports Java.

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