To make it easier to run various scripting languages on the Android platform, Google created the Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A) project [1]. Although Google at some point has lost interest in maintaining the project, the last release of the framework runs perfectly well on any Android version before 5.0. The Python for Android component includes Python 2.6, so practically any script compatible with this version of Python will work on Android. More importantly, the combination of the scripting layer and Python for Android can be used to access Android APIs, so you can write Python scripts that offer the same functionality as native Android apps.

That's all fine and dandy, but it looks like the SL4A project is no longer maintained, and the available APK packages don't run well on Android 5.0 and higher. Thankfully, the project's code is released under the Apache License 2.0, so the SL4A [2] and Python for Android [3] parts have already been forked and updated to work with Android 5.0.

The SL4A and Python for Android pair is not the only option for using Python for Android. The QPython project [4] aims to build an entire Python environment for the Android platform (Figure 1). QPython is available in Google Play Store in two editions: QPython is based on the Python 2.x series [5], and QPython3 comes with Python 3.x [6]. Both versions are packed with useful features. What's more, QPython supports SL4A, so it provides a drop-in replacement for Google's Scripting Layer for Android and Python for Android. The environment comes with the PIP package manager, which allows you to add practically any Python library and module to your project.

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