The building blocks of the Android application

Now, let's spend some time discussing applications—those things we write that provide value to the user. The Android applications are made up of various types of classes and resources. The following sections describe the different building blocks that an application can be composed of.

The Android packages (.apk)

Applications are delivered for installation in an Android package format. An Android package is created as the result of compiling an Android app and is an archive file with an .apk extension.

An Android package contains all of the code and the supporting files required to run a single application, including the following:

  • Dalvik executables (.dex files)
  • Resources
  • Native libraries
  • The application ...

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