As an Android application developer sharing here my success story. The following information teach you how to build a useful Android application. Also I have listed fundamental concepts that you should understand about Android application development.
Amyra Sheldon · Follow
Published in · 11 min read · May 2, 2019
I’ve been a full stack iOS and Android app developer with ValueCoders for quite a while now and responsible for overall architecture and realization of ValueCoders mobile applications on iOS and Android. (I can feel bubbles in my veins while telling my growth as an android app developer).
Back in the days, I’m talking about 2009, I’ve invested in my first Android mobile phone HTC Dream that I have seen Android as the little green robot. From then on, Android phones naturally managed to outgrow me.
And, today I have been developing mobile applications on both Android and iOS platforms and explains to developers the process of Android mobile application development that is all about understanding the mobile structure regardless of the coding.
It’s 2019, and we, iOS and Android mobile application developers and web app developers, have been through a lot in 10 years of span. Android is now in your car, in your home, and as soon we start assigning IP addresses to objects, it is going to be pretty much everywhere around us. This means a lot of ground is there for even an experienced Android app developer to cover!
So, what I am here for is to help you create a successful Android mobile application. I have made many successful apps and I’d like to share my story with you.
Success usually doesn’t happen overnight. “Success is the result of small efforts made by you day in and day out.” “Devote yourself to an idea, work on it, struggle on it, make it happen, and don’t forget this is your dream.”
The best part of my job is finalizing a good quality and clean code and managing a balance between tight deadlines and quality is the most challenging part of Android mobile application development. Also, it is very hard to estimate time frame for coding tasks. Unforeseeable problems may arise during the process of application development that require time and research to resolve.
Competition is the main game at this stage. With the right strategy, you will also need to create a blueprint of your plan to give your app idea some sort of structure. Look at the reviews in the Google App Store, look for your competition to know where you will need to add more to those holes.
The best way is to do a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) for finding and analyzing issues affecting your app idea. Being an Android application developer it was quite necessary for me and I did the same thing while handling Android application development process, and result being I have found the following through SWOT analysis:
* It helped me plan well and also helped identify threats in Android application development. This really helped me out to brush my skills and become an expert android application developer.
* It made me to think out of the box.
Things Android App Developers Must Know Before Starting Android Mobile App Development
- Learn and understand Java.
2. If you’re a beginner, you can use Android Studio, Eclipse or PraneethVT as your IDE.
3. Learn the basics of XML in designing your Android application.
4. Building an Android application requires a lot of efforts and time, so you’ve to be patient.
5. You can look for some help on Android mobile development from different forums like StackOverflow if you have a question or stuck in a certain problem.
6. Due to dynamic nature of Android mobile applications, I work on both Agile and DevOps development in daily doings.
There you have it, these are small things that you need to know before developing an Android application, let’s now begin the Android application development process. Being an android application developer it will help you to save time as well.
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Android Studio
As I have mentioned a while ago, to begin with the Android mobile application development process, you need a software known as IDE. However, the most commonly used IDE for Android app development is the Android Studio.
The Android Studio, can be easily downloaded, but make sure that when downloading Android Studio, it must be compatible with your system. You can download Android Studio here.
Additionally, IDE play a very important role in application development, because it provides the main user interface when coding your app. It also indicate you about some errors in coding and also allows you to identify things to test and run your app conveniently. Additionally, it also help build files that you will be needing in the Android mobile application development process and offers the basic form of layouts. In simple words, IDE saves your time and lots of your effort as well.
App Wireframe
A wireframe is a blueprint of the app. Not specifically I can say it’s about the UX of the Android application, though this may be a part of the wireframe. Wireframing will help structure your application and it will include features of your app, tools options that may be needed at the time of integration with platforms like ERP software, CRM software, social media, and all such. These all points makes sure that the idea of your Android app development is in sync with your business strategy.
Android applications are built as a combination of components. For example, an “activity” is a component of mobile application that provides a user interface (UI).
The activity starts when a user touch or tap on your app icon, you can also take the user direct into a different activity from other places as well, such as from a different app or by creating notification about your app.
There are other components of your mobile application such as “broadcast receivers” that allow your app to perform some type of background tasks without requiring any user interface (UI).
Using the Sensors
This gives you the basic idea of reading sensor data from the processing of your Android mobile application.
Sensor API in the Android SDK
Smartphones include many different types of sensors for example -
*Accelerometers
*Gyroscopes
*Magnetometers
*Thermometers
All these sensors allow to obtain information about the movement of a device.
While the processing language of your Android mobile application does not support functions to read data from these sensors, you can import packages in the Android SDK to receive sensor measurements into your app development sketch.
To create a sensor manager first create a sketch that responds to kinds of changes in acceleration process by using the data direct from the accelerometer.
Your first step should be to use the sensor API to obtain the main context of the activity that contains the sketch. And from there you can get the sensor manager from the context. Then, you can start initialize the sensor you need in your sketch.
I do all of this in the setup() function:
import android.content.Context;
import android.hardware.Sensor;
import android.hardware.SensorManager;
Context context;
SensorManager manager;
Sensor sensor;
void setup() { fullScreen();
context = getActivity();
manager (SensorManager)context.getSystemService(Context.SENSOR_SERVICE);
sensor = manager.getDefaultSensor(Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER);}
void draw() {}
Some Important Tips For Android Apps Developers:
Tip 1. As mobile technology rapidly advances, the importance of continuous learning of development and technology trends is necessary in order to make your app perform the best with the latest features. If you wish to see yourself to be a good android apps developer in long run then it is a must tip for you.
Also Read: Top 5 Trends of Artificial Intelligence (AI) 2019
Tip 2. The success of a mobile application UI / UX design certainly hinges on how well you design it with all its features to make your app interactive, intuitive, and user-friendly.
Also Read: Top 10 Full Stack Web Development Tools To Use In 2019
To preview the user interface, in the toolbar menu click or select “Design Interface” and select “Design.”
Now, you will notice that the Plain Text you have placed is pre-filled with “Name” and the button is labeled as “Button”.
However, you can change their names as well, I will show you how to rename a text box and button properly.
- Open the “Project” window.
2. Next open the file and go to app, then go to res — values, and finally strings.xml. This is how you can manage all user interface strings from a single location. This will make your Android application finding and updating even more easier.
3. Next, you’ve to click on the “Open Editor” given at the top of your editor window
4. When you click on open editor window, you’ll see a new window named as “Translations Editor.”
5. This is a type of editor that offers a simple interface for editing and adding default screens to your Android application. Not only that, it will also manage your Android application interpretation strings systematized.
To create a new string for text box
1. Click on the Add Key.
2. When you click on the Add Key tab a new dialog box will appear on your screen. There, you are required to fill up the mandatory fields.
3. Next, simply press enter on edit_message.
4. The Default Value tab open us there you need to Enter a Message.
5. Then finally click OK.
Furthermore to add a new key for the “button” menu, follow the same steps like what I did for the text box. Or you can follow these simple steps:
First, you need to enter “button_send” for the key
Then, “Send” to set the default value and click “OK.”
Now you can set the strings for every new review by going back to the layout file by clicking on the file “activity_main.xml” that you can find in the tab bar.
Furthermore, you can now add new strings by following these steps. It will be highly beneficial for your Android Mobile Application Development.
Step 1. Go to the layout tab, click here on the text box.
If you can’t see the Attributes screen, then make it go visible by clicking on the Attributes given in the right sidebar of your screen.
Step 2. Next you have to look for the option of “text” property here you have to remove the default value.
Step 3. Search for the option of “hint” property, and choose to Pick a Resource.
Here you will see a dialog box, click on the edit_message from the list.
Step 4. Now click on the button given In the layout menu. Search for the text property then click on “Pick a resource” and select the option button_send.
If you have installed your Android mobile application on your device, just simply click on “Apply Changes” given in the toolbar menu, and now you will be able to update your Android application with the option of new layout that you have made. Click on “Run” to inshttps://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/code_formatting.htmltall and run your app.
To help you get started with your Android mobileApplication, you can see how I have included FMX GUI Templates into the Home Screen and the Login Screen of app, as you can see here:
You can get these templates using Tools | Getit Package Manager to select the Sample Projects Category.
Some More Tips for Android Apps Developers:
Tip 1. Server-side objects are important for supporting the functions of your Android mobile application. If you’re using an existing mobile back-end platform, then modifications are needed for desired functionality.
Tip 2. You can utilize almost any web programming language and databases for the backend work. iOS applications can be developed using Objective-C or Swift programming language. Android applications are primarily build using Java or Kotlin.
Tip 3. The majority of Android mobile applications work on data models. Building database applications have always been one of the strongest features of the RAD Studio, C++ Builder, and Delphi. The Data Model looks like this:
unit uProjectsTypes;
interface
uses
System.Generics.Collections;
type
TProject = record
Proj_Id: integer;
Proj_Title: string;
Proj_Desc: string;
end;
TProjects = TList<TProject>;
implementation
end.
Tip 4. After you have seen my way of creating Data Model, I will explain you how to create an App User Interface:
IProjectsData = interface
function ProjectsCreate(aValue: TProject): integer;
function ProjectsRead(id: integer;
out aValue: TProject): boolean;
function ProjectsUpdate(id: integer; aValue: TProject): boolean;
function ProjectsDelete(id: integer): boolean;
procedure ProjectsList(aList: TProjects);
end;
To make you Android application accessible to people involves two tasks.
First, you need to make your Android application ready for release.
Second, you need to release your Android application to your user base.
In this section, I have outlined some of the important steps of the Android mobile app development process that you need to follow to prepare and publish your mobile application.
Preparing your Android Application for Release
Preparing your Android application for market release need to go through a lot of processes:
First, I prepare and configure the Android application for Release.
Second, you need to remove the android:versionName and android:versionCode from your app and Log Calls you can find in the <manifest> file.
I also work on other configure settings so that my app will be able to meet the requirements of Google Play Store.
Tip: If you’re using Gradle files, you can use build type as release.
How to build and sign a release version of Android application : As I have already mentioned, you can use the Gradle build files and release build type to sign and release version of your Android application.
Test your Android app’s release version : You can do this by making a thorough analysis of your app’s release version on a device of your choice like one on a phone device or other on tablet.
Update your Android app’s before release : Before releasing your Android app, ensure that all the important of your app such as graphics and multimedia files are updated properly and are able to be incorporated into your Android app on the appropriate production servers. Prepare your Android mobile application for the remote services and servers and upload it to Google Play Store.
Nevertheless, I hope that these tips will help you a lot and I am looking forward to seeing your Android application successfully published in Google Play Store. And would love to wish you a good luck If you too see yourself as an expert android apps developer or planning to startup your own android mobile application development company in the future. The scope s very wide!
If you need more help on Android mobile application development, kindly post your queries in the comment section and I will reply back to your queries accordingly. Looking forward for positive responses!
