The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) has announced the availability of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK). Available now as an early look, the Android SDK will enable developers to create innovative and compelling applications for the platform, the OHA says. It will also provide developers with the opportunity to participate in the evolution of the Android platform by providing feedback throughout the development process.
The Android platform was built from the ground up to enable developers to create new and innovative mobile applications that take full advantage of all the capabilities of a handset connected to the Internet. It is a complete mobile platform built on the Linux 2.6 kernel that exposes a robust operating system, a comprehensive set of libraries, a rich multimedia user interface, and a complete set of phone applications.
The OHA says that Androids innovative application model makes it easy for developers to extend, replace, and reuse existing software components to create rich and integrated mobile services for consumers. The Android platform also includes the Dalvik virtual machine to maximize application performance, portability, and security. The entire platform will be made available under the liberal, developer-friendly Apache v2 open-source licence in 2008.
The SDK contains a rich set of tools for developers to build applications for the Android platform. Included are advanced development and debugging tools, a rich set of libraries, a true device emulator, in-depth documentation, sample projects, tutorials, FAQs, and more. For developers looking for a seamless development experience, an Eclipse plugin is included to integrate these tools with the Eclipse
integrated development environment. The site hosting the kit will also feature a blog and discussion groups, to make it easier for everyone contributing to the platform to interact and share knowledge.
To begin building applications for Android, developers will need to download the Android SDK to an x86-based computer running Windows XP or Vista; Mac OS 10.4.8 or later; or Linux Ubuntu Dapper Drake or later. The OHA says that other modern distributions of Linux will also likely work, but are not directly supported.
Developers will also need Eclipse 3.2 or later, with Java Development Tools and the Android SDKs plugin, or Java and Javac 1.5 or 1.6; Apache Ant; an integrated development environment; and Python 2.2 or later.
You can get more information, and download the SDK, here.