An adapter in Android acts as a bridge between an AdapterView and the underlying data for that view. The adapter provides access to the data items and is responsible for creating a view for each item. There are two main types of adapter views: ListView and Spinner. An AdapterView handles filling its layout with data through an adapter and handling user selections by setting an OnItemClickListener. Developers can use a ListActivity, which simplifies working with lists by automatically creating a ListView, or extend Activity and manually create the ListView.