Android (operating system)

Legendary card · No. 1764

Android is an operating system developed by Google, designed primarily for smartphones and tablets (touchscreen-based mobile devices originally; later for other devices, such as TVs), based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software. First released in 2008, Android is the most popular operating system in the world with 4 billion users, and the most used operating system for smartphones. The latest version, released on June 16, 2026, is Android 17. At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), that was originally only made for a smartphone, and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run the proprietary Android open-core version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed, most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS), which includes core apps such as Google Chrome, the digital distribution platform Google...

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