Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google. It is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open source software, and is designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition, Google has developed Android TV for televisions, Android Auto for cars, and Wear OS for wearables, each with a specialized user interface. Variants of Android are also used on game consoles, digital cameras, PCs and other electronics.
Initially developed by Android Inc., which Google bought in 2005, Android was unveiled in 2007, with the first commercial Android device launched in September 2008. The current stable version is Android 10, released on September 3, 2019. The core Android source code is known as Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which is primarily licensed under the Apache License.
Android is also associated with a suite of proprietary software developed by Google, called Google Mobile Services (GMS),[10] that frequently comes pre-installed on devices. This includes core apps such as Gmail, the application store/digital distribution platform Google Play and associated Google Play Services development platform, and usually includes the Google Chrome web browser and Google Search app. These apps are licensed by manufacturers of Android devices certified under standards imposed by Google, but AOSP has been used as the basis of competing Android ecosystems such as Amazon.com's Fire OS, which use their own equivalents to Google Mobile Services.
Android has been the best-selling OS worldwide on smartphones since 2011 and on tablets since 2013. As of May 2017, it has over two billion monthly active users, the largest installed base of any operating system, and as of December 2018, the Google Play store features over 2.6 million apps.