Personality behind the Invention of Android Operation System II

Personality behind the Invention of Android Operation System II

The year, 2012 witnessed the unveiling of Android version 4.1, codenamed “Jelly Bean”, which signaled a new era for the Android OS. The most important feature Jelly Bean was “Google Now”, which was easily accessed with a quick swipe from the home screen. This feature brought variety of information such as calendar events, emails, and weather reports — all on a single screen. The feature was really Google’s first major shot at a digital assistant, which laid the groundwork for future versions of digital assistants, including Google Assistant. Google Now is a feature of Android OS that transforms Artificial intelligence from what used to be a mere fantasy to an integral part of real-life happenings using smartphones. Google Now was code-named “Majel” — after Majel Barrett, wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Google Now became the real seismic shift in artificial intelligence that was built on Google Voice Search.

Apart from Google Now, a number of other important additions were added to Jelly Bean, such as Refreshed font, expandable notifications, greater widget flexibility and Project Butter, which was aimed at drastically improving Android’s touch performance by tripling buffering graphics. This eliminated a lot of the stutter in Android and made it a much smoother experience overall and one of the biggest updates to Android OS up to that time.

With time, Google perfected her acts and continued to release different versions of Android OS on annual basis. From the year 2013 to the current year of 2018, Google released six Android versions; each was an improvement over the previous version.

In 2013, Android version 4.4, code-named “Kitkat” was released with a number of great features. The release was made to coincide with the launch of the Nexus 5 that uses the Kitkat. In addition to aesthetic changes in Android OS, KitKat brought things like the “OK, Google” search command, which allowed the user to access Google Now at any time. It also brought a new phone dialer, full-screen apps, and a new Hangouts app, which offered SMS support along with support for the Hangouts messaging platform. In 2014, Android version 5.0 named “Lollipop” was released alongside Nexus 6. Lollipop was the first to feature Google’s “Material Design” philosophy, several notification upgrades, the addition of RAW image and Android TV that brought Android to the big screen.

The year 2015 witnessed the released of Android version 6, code-named “Marshmallow”. This brought both design changes and changes under the hood. The most notable change was that of the app menu; Google used a white background instead of black and added a search bar to help users quickly find the app they needed. Android Marshmallow also brought the addition of the memory manager, which allows user to check the memory usage of any app used within the past 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours. Another notable change was in the volume controls. The user of Marshmallow has access to a more comprehensive set of volume controls; users can change the volume for the device, media, and alarms separately as desired. The security system of Android got a pretty big boost as part of the improvement of Android OS. For the first time, Android OS supported the fingerprint sensors beginning in Marshmallow. Request for “permissions” to download was also improved significantly. Instead of apps requesting all permissions upfront when downloaded, permissions were requested on a per-permission basis when they were required.

In 2016, Android version 7.0, called “Nougat” was released. Nougat was reputed to be one of the biggest upgrades to Android in its then ten years of existence. The most significant and notable change was the replacement of Google Now with the now much-respected “Google Assistant”. Along with Assistant, Nougat brought an improved notifications system, which tweaked how notifications looked and acted within the OS. Notifications were presented from screen to screen, and unlike previous iterations of Android, they could be grouped together for easy management. Multitasking also got a boost with Nougat; whether one is using a phone or a tablet, the user can use split-screen mode, allowing the use of two apps at once without having to exit out of each app every few minutes.

Android version 8.0 code-named “Oreo” was launched in 2017. Oreo took the Android platform to a higher level with a ton of multitasking features. Picture-in-picture and native split-screen both made their debuts in Android Oreo; meaning user could continue watching his/her favorite show on Netflix while browsing the web. Android Oreo also gave a whole lot more control over notifications. With Oreo, users were given the ability to turn notification channels on or off, meaning one could get super granular with which notifications show up and what happens when they appear. In particular, notification channels allowed users to sort notifications based on importance. Also notification-related, Oreo brought notification dots, and the ability to snooze notifications. A few other smaller features showed up in Oreo, too. For example, Oreo also gave an auto-enable Wi-Fi, a smart text selector, and so on.

The latest version of Google’s Android OS is Android 9 Pie released in 2018. This version embraces circles, rounded edges, artificial intelligence, and it genuinely attempts to care for the user’s digital wellbeing. Dozens of small delectable features add up to a satisfying slice of pie that makes amiable to millions of Android fans. Adding to aesthetic change is the visual interface pie-shaped circle that was more colorful. This makes the OS feel friendlier and fluid to the user. Perhaps the most drastic change, however, lies in the navigation menu. Gone are the Android navigation buttons in favor of a single, pill-shaped icon. Like iOS on the iPhone X, Android is now all about gesture navigation: Using swipes instead of taps on icons. There are Slices and Actions Android Pie. The latter predicts actions a user is about to perform, and it will inject two buttons in the app drawer. For example, if a user is about to text a friend, it might offer a quick shortcut that can tap on what will open up a default messaging app and jump straight to the contact. “Actions” needs some time to learn user’s routines, but when it does, it offers genuinely useful shortcuts that save time and increase communication efficiency. Slices add more details when user searches for content and apps. Artificial Intelligence is not just a buzzword in Android Pie — it really works.

The actions perform on notifications in Pie is an improvement as “Reply” and “Mark as Read” are no longer divided separately, but instead they float in the notification bubble. The font changes here really help make the interface look cleaner, and so do the brighter colors. You can even see images directly in the notification so you don’t need to open an app to respond, which helps make notifications more useful than ever before. It truly does make multitasking on a phone feel faster. There are a lot of other changes that just improve the everyday usability of the OS. For example, Do Not Disturb is no longer a mess of confusing options. Instead, tap it once and the OS will completely block all visual and audio interruptions. Flipping the phone even face down turns this one easily. It is simple, and incredibly effective. These changes may be minor, but collectively they made giant improvement of the daily usage of Android pie.

Another very critical issue addressed by Google in Android Pie is how to reduce time spends on phones with a so-called “digital wellbeing”. A recent survey conducted by Motorola, Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital revealed that that more than 53 percent of respondents (born between 1990s and the early 2000s) described their phone as their “best friend.” This clearly show that people spend too much time on phones at the expense of physical interaction with other people, and Google wants to address this with a few “Digital Wellbeing” features in Android Pie. There are four key components of Digital Wellbeing; the updated “Do Not Disturb” option helps completely block out all alerts so user can focus or pay attention to the task at hand. Then, there is App Timers, which let user set a limit for how long an app is used. After hitting the limit, the app’s icon goes gray-scale to remind the user of his time’s limit. This is quite a wonderful innovation in Android OS, but it requires a lot of willpower from the user to not override the limit.

In conclusion, both versions of Android and iPhone series are relatively comparable in advancing the frontiers of smartphone technologies. The personalities behind these smartphones spend sleepless night to outdo each other at the pleasure and benefits of their users while enriching millions of people along smartphones’ value chains.

Personality behind the Invention of Android Operation System

http://neptuneprime.com.ng/2018/12/06/personality-behind-the-invention-of-android-operation-system-by-professor-mk-othman,  /Personality behind the Invention of Android Operation System 

This article has a bearing on my previous 4 – series article titled “Recognizing the 21^st Century Inventors” published from 28^th September to 19^th to October 2018 in this Column. That article focused on the recognition accorded to the inventors of GSM and cellular phones up to the unveiling of series of iPhones from iPhone I to XS Max. The miraculous debut of iPhone series to the global GSM market and their unprecedented successes were all achieved within a span of eleven years (2007 to 2018). The article ended with the introduction of Android operation system, which today is the only steep and serious competitor to iPhone OS.

It was in 2007, when Apple launched the first iPhone and ushered in a new era in mobile computing. At that time, Google was still working on Android Operating System confidentially and secretly, but in November of the same year, the company slowly started to reveal its plans to combat Apple and other mobile platforms. It used the formation of what was called the Open Handset Alliance, a sort of teamwork of experts that included phone makers like HTC and Motorola, chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, and carriers including T-Mobile.

Historically, Android started four years earlier than the time Apple announced its first iPhone and its iOS. This was even before the term “smartphone” was publicly used to refer a cellular phone with provision of Internet services. Precisely, Android Inc was founded in October 2003 in Palo Alto, California. Its four founders were Rich Miner, Nick Sears, Chris White, and Andy Rubin, respectively.

The original idea of Android as revealed by one of the founders, Rubin in a 2013 speech in Tokyo that Android OS was initially meant to improve the operating systems of digital cameras in cellular phones. The company made pitches to investors in 2004 that showed how Android, installed on a camera, would connect wirelessly to a PC. That PC would then connect to an “Android Datacenter,” where camera owners could store their photos online on a cloud server. At that time, the Android team did not obviously think of inventing an OS that would serve as the heart of a complete mobile computing system that can serve like any PC. The team’s effort miraculously coincided with the decline of stand-alone digital cameras in the global market. A few months later, Android Inc decided to shift gears towards using the OS inside mobile phones. As Rubin said in 2013, “The exact same platform, the exact same operating system we built for cameras, that became Android for cellphones.” He was further quoted as saying that Android Inc was going to develop “smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner’s location and preferences”. This statement formed the conceptual framework that eventually resulted to the debut of Android Operation System. While the establishment of Android Inc was done in 2003 alongside the initial development of the Android OS, Google purchased the company in 2005. Google together with Open Handset Alliance vigorously pursued the development of Android OS.

The public but non-commercial release of the Android beta was done on November 5, 2007 while the first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released on September 23, 2008. During the release, then Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted saying, “Today’s announcement is more ambitious than any single ‘Google Phone’ that the press has been speculating about over the past few weeks. Our vision is that the powerful platform we are unveiling will power thousands of different phone models” – made by different manufacturers. This statement clearly indicated the direction of Google and Open Handset Alliance in their effort to give Apple a keenest competition in the history of “smartphones”.

Between September 2008 and February 2009, Android versions 1 and 1.1 were released. The versions had only basic functions, which included a suite of early Google apps such as Gmail, Maps, Calendar and YouTube, which were integrated into the operating system. Few months after the release of Android 1.1 in 2009, another release of Android 1.5 code named “Cupcake” was made. Thus, the tradition of Android version names of Android was born. Each time the OHA releases an Android version; it names the release after a “dessert”. Android 1.5 is known as “Cupcake”, 1.6 as “Donut”, 2.0/2.1 as “Éclair”, 2.2 as “Froyo” and 2.3 is dubbed “Gingerbread”.

Cupcake introduced numerous refinements to the Android interface, including the first on-screen keyboard — something that became necessary as phones moved away from the once-ubiquitous physical keyboard model. Cupcake also brought about the framework for third-party app widgets, which turned to be one of Android's most distinguishing elements because it provided a platform for video recording. It was the first-ever option in smartphone.

In the last quarter of 2009, Android version 1.6, which was codename Donut was released into the market. Donut filled in some important holes in Android's center, which included the ability of the OS to operate on a variety of different screen sizes and resolutions. This was a critical factor for the function of smartphones in the coming years. It also added support for CDMA networks like Verizon, which played a key role in imminent market explosion of Android in the telephone industry.

Android moved with breakneck speed to make within months or weeks intervals. Android 2.0 and 2.1 were simultaneously released just six weeks after Donut; while 2.1 called Eclair, came out a month later. The most transformative feature of this android version was the addition of voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic information. This was something previously unheard and unmatched in the smartphone world. Aside this, Eclair brought live wallpapers to Android as well as the platform's first speech-to-text function. And it made waves for injecting the once-iOS-exclusive pinch-to-zoom capability into Android — “a move that was seen as the spark that ignited Apple's long-lasting ‘thermonuclear war’ against Google” as reported by https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/android-version-history/ .

Four months after the release of Android 2.1 arrived, Google served the smartphone world another Android version 2.2, named “Froyo”, which revolved largely around under-the-hood performance improvements. In addition to performance improvement, Froyo brought Voice Actions feature, which allowed user to perform basic functions like getting directions and making notes by tapping an icon and then speaking a command. It also brought support for use of “Flash drive”. This was a significant option because of the widespread use of Flash at the time and Apple's adamant stance against supporting it on its own mobile devices.

Android's first most significant conquest of the market was in 2010 with the release Android 2.3 version, called Gingerbread. Gingerbread came with an improved keyboard, which offered new coloration for the keys, as well as improved multi-touch support, which allowed users to press multiple keys to access a secondary keyboard. The most important feature of Gingerbread is the support for the front-facing camera, which made it possible for user to snap self, a so-called “selfie”. This feature endeared Android OS to several millions of users across the globe.

In 2011, Android versions 3 and 4, the so-called “Honeycomb” and “Ice cream sandwich” were released. Performance improvement was added to the two versions over the previous ones, Conceivably, the most outstanding feature of the Honeycomb was absence of the physical button. Instead, the home, back, and menu buttons were all included in the software as virtual buttons that means, the buttons could be hidden or shown based on the application and the desire of the user. The operating system brought over the aforementioned virtual buttons, as well as the tweaked and refined interface that made use of the blue highlights. Other small features, such as face unlock, data usage analysis, and new apps for mail and calendar, were also included in the update. Galaxy Nexus was the phone that showcased the Ice Cream Sandwich version, an operating system that brought many of Honeycomb’s features over to the smartphone. How far has Android OS gone in meeting the demands its millions users? (To be continued next week)

Readers’ Comments on Prof Falaki

Readers’ Comments on Prof Falaki

My dear readers, it is another circle of readers’ comments when you are allowed to express your opinions on issues, which appeared in this Column. However, I am dedicating the entire Column to the comments of my readers on the recent tribute I wrote on my mentor, teacher and motivator, Prof. Ahmad Mustafa Falaki. The tribute was published on 9^th November 2018, titled  “Professor Ahmad Mustafa Falaki: The Fall of The Farmers’ General”. The article enjoyed unprecedented readership; there were uncountable number of comments and more than 100 individuals’ “shares” of the article, which was posted on my Facebook, Instagram and circulated among WhatsApp individuals and groups. This Column cannot publish all the comments but selected only three comments from few among the beneficiaries of Falaki’s benevolence, who had privilege of closed working relationship with him at one time or the other. Their comments reflect the comments of the generality of people and provided additional information on the life and times of Prof. Falaki.

Re: Professor Ahmad Mustafa Falaki: The Fall of The Farmers’ General

Late Prof Ahmad Falaki’s historical background in terms of his journey into SG 2000 dated back as 1993. That was when the country director, then Dr Balancia contacted Falaki, after Falaki was appointed by the ditrector of IAR to replace Prof Irenle as the technical desk man for Sasakawa in Nigeria.  In 1998, the program was about to close for certain reasons, there was a transistion program before the closure, Dr. Norman Boulong approved Falaki’s appointment as the National Coordinator different from the counry director who was then transferred out of the country to Malawi. So falaki took over the management of SG 2000 from 1998 to 2008. It was during this period we received Norman Boulong twice. He came in and attended the national maize workshop in 2000 and Maize field day in saminaka in 2001 and you can clearly see the level of interaction between Norman Boulough and Falaki. It is because of the respect Norman Boulong had for Falaki that made him to come back to Nigeria, one year after his first visit. Falaki was very prudent and tactical in his approach to things and very simple mind. He took over the use of the management training plot (MTP), which was the extension tool for demonstration of good agronomic practices for production on the farmers’ plot. MTP replaced  SPART (Small Plot Adoptive Research Technique) concept and made a national tool, which was nationally  being used even where SG 2000 was not operating, MTP became the tool of extension service delivery. At that time, Norman Boulong was the president SASAKAWA Association and Chairman of the Board, This is the realtioship between Norman Boulong and Falaki. On leadership of SG 2000, he was able to bring about competent extension Staff in SG 2000, build their capacity and enhanced their skill and knowledge and then push them out to carry out specific task with outstanding performance in delivering extension service to small holder farmers. By the time, Falaki handed over the leadership of SG 2000 to me, Falaki has improved the maize yield of small holder farmer from 1.5 to 4.5 tons per hectare, wheat value chain technology was another giant achievement of Falaki in this country. Improved varieties were introduced and improved practices from small research plot to proximate analysis were all promoted through the effort of Falaki as the country coordinator of SG 2000. On his relationship with people, Falaki had touched lives thousands of people positively, Your article has clearly brought out this human angle where Falaki played prominent roles in shaping and making people. What you wrote was actually a true testimony of Falaki’s benevolent gesture to people as a gentleman. He never showed resistance to support people from all walks of life achieve their desired goals in their careers. I have so many instances to show this, there was a time; Falaki and I were leaving the Senate Building of ABU, we met a young man weeping, we didn’t know him, Falaki asked him why he was weeping, the young man said, he was given admission and he came for registration and the admission letter was consficated because the young man didn’t come with “letter of indigene” which shows your state of origin in Nigeria, Falaki checked the academic qualification of the young man, his o-level was excellent, Falaki became furious and went back to the academic secretary and directed that the young man should be registered and latter be requested to bring the “letter of indigene” and that was how the young man was registered. Another example is my case, when I finished my school of Basic Studies, Falaki was the admission officer of the faculty of Agriculture, I didn’t know him from Adams, I met him coincidently, I told him I applied to read agriculture and he requested for my credentials, he checked and promptly assured me of admission. When the admission was released my name was number one on the list. He took us several courses at my undergraduate level; he automatically became my role model, he made me to be a competent and resilience researcher in the area of irrigation agronomy. He was always up and doing, calling his staff, have you done this, that, etc to make sure goals are achieved within the targeted period. He had touched the lives of farmers from Maiduguri down to Calabar, even though, SG 2000 activities were limited to the northern parts of Nigeria but you can find his name up to Cross river state,   he organized national training in several towns in the south aimed at increasing SG 2000 intervention to cover the nation, even though not officially operating there. There was a case of a student who came for financial help to me and I told him, I was not in position to help and he should approach Falaki but the student was resisting because of wrong perception on him, but Falaki just emerged at that moment, we eventually told Falaki the problem, there and then the problem was solved beyond the student’s imagination. After the student graduated, he had no means of travelling back to the south and Falaki made possible for him to return back comfortably.

Technically speaking, he won the confidence of Norman Boulough who described Falaki as a gentleman, simple man, active and goal getter. This is because within a period of three years (2000 to 2003), Falaki was able to convice Federal government to accept extension model formulated by SG 2000 and made a national model.  Currently, that is what SG 2000 is doing, formulating a model, which makes smallholder farmer increase productivity and production per unit area of farm land. Falaki continued to serve SG 2000 as the national adviser even after he completed his tenure as the National Coordinator in 2008. This was the position he was holding up to the time of his death.

In addition to serving SG 2000, he also served Leventis Foundation as Chairman of the technical Board of the foundation. The Board is responsible for planning of technical training of young men and women in Nigeria. He served the foundation with all the resources at his disposal, first as national coordinator of SG 2000, then as Assistant Director, IAR and then finally as Executive Director of IAR. He linked the colleges with high level personalities in government for support to the activities of the colleges. The colleges churned out graduates with vocational skills in different agricultural trades and starter – packs, which enabled them to entrepreneurs with many of them becoming employers of labour in the country. One amazing thing about Falaki, each time, a problem arose, Falaki had a magic wand on who to contact, how to address it and what to do.  He was able to bring a lot of innovations to the colleges.    He was instrumental to the establishments of all the six colleges under the foundation. He was not taking salary or allowances from the colleges but he never missed their graduations, meetings and other functions.     

With all sense of humility, the tribute to Malam, as I addressed late Prof. Ahmad Mustapha Falaki during his lifetime as a mark of respect,  recognition and appreciation, published in the Tuesday, 11th September, 2018, edition of Leadership Newspaper, came a right time and written by the right person-Prof. Mohammed Khalid Othman, the Executive Director, National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services, Ahmadu Bello University (NAERLS), Zaria. Let me state that the duo (Malam and the Prof. Othman), for me, were both my mentors and inspirational leaders. They both possess shared principle of humane compassion as well as exhibition of qualities of visionary leaders. Coincidently, I served as the Institute Secretary, Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), Ahmadu Bello University, Samaru-Zaria, with Malam until his sad rest in peace, and, currently, serving as the Institute Secretary, NAERLS, with Prof. Othman as the Executive Director.

 Prof. Othman write-up can only be described as scratch on an unhealed wound, obviously the sudden and untimely gruesome murder of Malam in cold blood. Reading through the article made my heart to bleed profusely. However, I found solace and comfort when Prof. Othman summed up the accomplishments of Malam as" consummate agricultural extension specialist per excellence and farmers; general".  Prof. Othman described, and I wholeheartedly shared the description of Malam as" embodiment of truth, hard work and perseverance, with limitless passion to assist, fight for common man and absolutely engage in youth mentorship".

 

Prof. Othman, one of the celebrated disciples of  Malam, has, using pen and paper, presented our collective tribute to the 'Farmers' General' and indeed, a Marshal in Aljannatul Fidausi. May Allah (SWT) continue to shower His Rahmah on Malam, amin!

Aliyu Sule

NAERLS,

Ahmadu Bello University,

Zaria

         I have carefully and thoroughly gone through your article on our elder brother and mentor 'Alhaji Falaki'. Prof. Falaki was an epitome of humility, discipline and generosity. More often than not, he denied himself for the benefit of others. He sacrificed his time and energy to secure admissions and appointments for people regardless of religion, tribe or other primordial factors. I am good example of his benevolence. I was doing my national service at Agenebode in the former Bendel state and suddenly I received a mail through the post office, in which he directed that I should send my application for employment to Ahmadu Bello University through him. I was surprised on how he got my address as I was not close to him as a student. I was shocked because as a shy student I couldn't imagine that Prof. Falaki ever notice my presence in a class of over 100 undergraduates. Moreover, I am from Gongola state and not Kano where Prof. Falaki came from. Unknown to me and many of our classmates, Falaki was hunting for talents that will replace his generation. A visionary leader knows that he will not be in a place forever, so he scouts for replacements. Out of about six of us in our class he scouted from different states of the federation, we are today first class Professors. Indeed a good succession to their generation. I have not seen anywhere in the article where you mentioned his tenure of as Executive Director of IAR, a premier agricultural research institute in Nigeria. As a Director of IAR, Prof. Falaki's open door policy and experience in international project administration made him to attract numerous third party projects to the institute. Furthermore, he created enabling environment to research that made many researchers to rediscover themselves and put in their best to research and innovation. This significantly improved the research output of the institute. He really set the institute on solid research foot. I am his direct successor and at first the shoe was too big, but God's willing, we have adjusted. I am eternally grateful for his impact on me. I have learnt a lot of wisdom from him. May his soul rest in Aljanna Firdaus, Amin. Prof. I. U. Abubakar.


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