

The bottom of the stack includes the parts of the operating system that interface directly with the device's hardware.Īndroid's software stack begins with the hardware at the bottom. Elements at the top of the stack are what the user sees while interacting with the operating system. Computer engineers call this a software stack. You can visualize the Android operating system as several layers. Many Android tablets run some version of Android between Cupcake and Honeycomb.Īll versions of Android have the same foundation.

The older the Android build, the fewer apps the tablet will be able to run without problems.

Older versions of the operating system may not be able to run some Android apps. A few are in the tablet dark ages, running Android 1.5 - also known as Cupcake. Older tablets may be stuck with an operating system Google designed for smartphones. Most of the latest Android tablets feature Honeycomb, also known as Android 3.0. All Android tablets run a version of Google's mobile operating system.
