The new permissions model is used only by applications developed for Marshmallow using its software development kit (SDK), and older apps will continue to use the previous all-or-nothing approach. In 2018, Norwegian security firm Promon has unearthed a serious Android security hole which can be exploited to steal login credentials, access messages, and track location, which could be found in all versions of Android, including Android 10. However, not every developer agreed that piracy rates were an issue; for example, in July 2012 the developers of the game Wind-up Knight said that piracy levels of their game were only 12%, and most of the piracy came from China, where people cannot purchase apps from Google Play. Google introduced Project Treble, a major re-architect of the Android OS framework designed to make it easier, faster, and less costly for manufacturers to update devices to newer versions of Android. Microsoft has also tied its own Android software to patent licenses, requiring the bundling of Microsoft Office Mobile and Skype applications on Android devices to subsidize the licensing fees, while at the same time helping to promote its software lines.

Chinese companies are building a PC and mobile operating system, based on Android, to "compete directly with Microsoft Windows and Google Android". In June 2014, Google announced Android One, a set of "hardware reference models" that would "allow [device makers] to easily create high-quality phones at low costs", designed for consumers in developing countries. billion end users in 2014, Android shipped over four times more than iOS and OS X combined, and over three times more than Microsoft Windows.The SDK includes a comprehensive set of development tools, [111] including a debugger, software libraries, a handset emulator based on QEMU, documentation, sample code, and tutorials. Google maintains a public code repository that contains their experimental work to re-base Android off the latest stable Linux versions. Less than six months earlier, Google's then- CEO Larry Page announced in a blog post that Andy Rubin had moved from the Android division to take on new projects at Google, and that Sundar Pichai would become the new Android lead. Describing the statistics, Farhad Manjoo wrote in The New York Times that "About one of every two computers sold today is running Android.

The device would become the start of the Google Play edition program, and was followed by other devices, including the HTC One Google Play edition, [39] and Moto G Google Play edition. Android has suffered from "fragmentation", [343] a situation where the variety of Android devices, in terms of both hardware variations and differences in the software running on them, makes the task of developing applications that work consistently across the ecosystem harder than rival platforms such as iOS where hardware and software varies less.

In both cases, the use of closed-source software causes the system to become vulnerable to backdoors. Google announced in April 2010 that they would hire two employees to work with the Linux kernel community, [196] but Greg Kroah-Hartman, the current Linux kernel maintainer for the stable branch, said in December 2010 that he was concerned that Google was no longer trying to get their code changes included in mainstream Linux. Rubin had difficulty attracting investors early on, and Android was facing eviction from its office space. In addition to their availability on commercially available hardware, similar PC hardware-friendly versions of Android are freely available from the Android-x86 project, including customized Android 4.

By May 2010, Android had a 10% worldwide smartphone market share, overtaking Windows Mobile, [348] whilst in the US Android held a 28% share, overtaking iPhone OS.On November 5, 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technology companies including Google, device manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint and T-Mobile, and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, unveiled itself, with a goal to develop "the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices". In 2014, in an effort to improve prominence of the Android brand, Google began to require that devices featuring its proprietary components display an Android logo on the boot screen.

An opt-in system is used instead, in which users are prompted to grant or deny individual permissions to an app when they are needed for the first time.Since 2012, Android devices with Intel processors began to appear, including phones [146] and tablets.