If we don’t bother about the recent skirmish between two Larrys (Larry Page, the Google’s CEO and Larry Ellison, the Oracle CEO), the combination of Android and Java is so far causing tremendous apps and the most excellent among them are games. Google says Android exists on more than half of the smart-devices all over the world and Oracle says Java now powers more than 5 billion diverse electronic devices. Developers say – long live Android, long live Java!
Java is the most used programming language and its use in Android game development is a godsend for developers. Java can be used in creating from simplest Android games to the complex ones. Due to simplicity and easiness of Java, Android has turned out to be a popular platform for game development.
However, there have always been some features with Android OS that naturally attracted game developers-
–Android is an open source platform that makes the development of games comparatively less costly. Android allows anyone who is interested to customize the source code so that the app will become more useful and error-free. Latest report claims Android apps crash much less than iOS apps and devs believe that it is because of open source that added such capability to Android.
–Android supports both 2D graphics and 3D graphics. However it uses quite different APIs for 2D vs. 3D graphics. The API powering 2D graphic is built on the Skia graphic library. The 3D graphic API is OpenGL-ES, the “embeddable” subset of the well-known cross-platform OpenGL 3D graphics API. But, they both provide outstanding graphic outputs.
–Despite the fact that Android is open source, the development standards of this OS are similar to iPhone. Both have been tested several times for performance and functionalities and there is nothing that can challenge Android.
–Rapid and easier development has also made Android the most sought-after mobile operating system among game developers.
–For any game development, support of rich audio and video formats is a prerequisite. Here developers find Android OS with readily available supports for almost all media and audio formants. It is really great for developing rich games.
–Android devices are far economical than iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone powered devices. Many Android powered smartphone can be purchased at $200. This gives chance to people to easily have a smartphone that is powered by Android OS.
Nancy Baker
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Vitaly Kuprenko
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