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Chapter 1. When is a Phone Not a Phone? > Time for action — installing an Andro...
Time for action — installing an Android development package
To download and install the Android development package, go to java.com and download the Java Development Kit (JDK) . Just having a regular Java package installed is not enough. You need to install the developer tools, too. Go to http://developer.java.com and search for the JDK developer download. It will be a .exe file. Run the installer:
Once JDK developer is installed, the next step is to get the Android development tools. These are available at http://developer.android.com. Download the .exe version of the Windows installer.
After the first Android installer runs, it will launch the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) and Android Virtual Device (AVD) manager. Yes, I know these are a lot of acronyms. Java developers love their three-letter acronyms. The SDK and AVD manager will ask to download the various android platform-specific APIs. Go ahead and choose the default options. Android will go through a series of downloads and install them after they are downloaded:
Name the first one phone and select Android 2.3.3-API Level 10 (which is the latest, at present).
Choose a screen size. The QVGA skin should work for most phones. Then click on the Create AVD button to launch the Virtual Device:
What just happened?
One of the current problems with the Android platform is called fragmentation. This means that there are a lot of devices that have been sold with various versions of the software on them. As Google produces new distributions of Android, some devices get the updated versions and some do not. Depending on how much the device manufacturer and carrier have customized the Android software, they may make the decision that it's in their best interest to force the user to upgrade to a different device rather than to distribute the updated software to existing devices.
