1.5. More capabilities with native libraries

We’re now going to look at the system libraries bundled with the Android platform. Welcome to the world of C/C++ and native libraries! These libraries are also exposed to the Android SDK via JNI, and therefore you don’t have to deal with native code (unless you want to), but it’s important to understand the relationships.

Well cover these libraries briefly, to describe the Android middle tier. Our intention is to give you an idea of what’s possible with Android by looking at some of the technologies that ship with it. We’ll begin with the stuff that gets your attention first: audio and video from OpenCORE. Then we’ll check out the database storage option, SQLite. From there we’ll look at the browser rendering engine, WebKit. And finally we’ll wrap it up with a discussion of hardware sensors and the camera.