Google Releases Android Native C/C++ Development Kit

In an attempt to lure the developers’ community, Google has come up with the Android Native Development Kit (NDK), which would enable third party developers to embed components using native code languages C and C+ + into their applications, the search giant announced on the Android developers blog.

However, the newly launched toolkit, dubbed as “Android 1.5 NDK”, doesn’t really let developers to run entirely native codes over devices, but allows them to add native codes into applications designed to run in Dalvik virtual machines (DVM).

Developers can use NDK to code some of the sensitive parts of their programs in C, followed by reusing existing C code on the Android platform; incidentally, the NDK doesn’t offer access to platform framework APIs, and it is tailored to be used along with Java to code some crucial parts of programs that need current C libraries. 

Commenting upon the drawbacks of the new tool, the company said, “The NDK will not benefit most applications. As a developer, you will need to balance its benefits against its drawbacks; notably, using native code does not result in an automatic performance increase, but does always increase application complexity”.

In addition to launching Android NDK, the team has also released the updated version of Android 1.5 SDK, which is available to developers as Release 2.

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