How Android works: The big picture

Ed Burnette started a series of posts on Android, Google's new mobile phone OS. In this first post, he writes:

Some parts of Android will be familiar, such as the Linux Kernel, OpenGL, and the SQL database. Others may be completely foreign, such as Android’s idea of the application life cycle. You’ll need a good understanding of these key concepts in order to write well-behaved Android applications.

More details about the different Android layers are available.