Top 5 Android App Development Fundamentals for Beginners

Users get interested in an app because it has some amazing new feature, not because the app itself is very interesting. Apps are what give smartphones their "smart" reputation, and because to the many advantages they offer, apps have had a significant impact on the way we live our lives today. Programmers that are skilled in creating and constructing applications are becoming more busy designing and building their own apps and integrating them with desirable features. In this post, we will discuss the top 5 principles of Android application development that you ought to be familiar with before you begin building an Android application:

1. Master the language
2. A working knowledge of the appropriate programming environments and tools for application development
3. A familiarity with the various parts of the programme
4. Awareness over fragmentations, android application, threads, loaders, and tasks
5. Choosing the right tools.

Android App Development Fundamentals

1. Master the Language

The creation of Android apps often makes use of Java and XML as its primary forms of programming language. Because of this, having knowledge of and proficiency in each of these programming languages is required in order to design an app for Android. The following is a list of some of the principles of the Java programming language:You will be able to construct/develop an android app that is more sturdy and beautiful if you have a good grasp of Java and XML.

2. A Solid Understanding of the Appropriate Application Development Tools and Environment

Before you begin to work on your app, it is essential for you to become familiar with the integrated development environment as well as the build automation tools if you are just beginning to work with Android application development. If you are just getting started with developing apps for Android, this section is for you. You may use Eclipse or Android app studio IDE for the tools; both of them will assist you in learning the fundamentals as well as a great deal of other information that will help enhance your code. You should become familiar with Apache Maven, Apache Ant, and Gradle since together they offer a potent collection of tools that will assist you in the management of your builds.

In addition to this, it is essential that you become familiar with the various tools and ideas related to source control. Acquire a working knowledge of git, and then create a repository for git source code (by creating an account on Bitbucket or GitHub). You can use the Git Pocket Guide to familiarise yourself with the fundamental ideas and terminology underpinning the platform's operation.

3. Knowledge of the Application Components

Components of applications are the fundamental elements that are used in the construction of Android apps. Your app can be accessed by the system in a variety of different ways depending on which component it is. Some of them are intertwined, and not all of them are genuine entryways. Despite the fact that each one of them lives as its own entity and fulfils a particular function, there are some of them that are dependent on one another.

There are five main categories of app components, each of which serves a unique purpose and possesses a unique life cycle that determines how it is developed and when it is removed from service. They are as follows:

• Activities:

This element symbolises a single display screen that is responsible for hosting a user interface (for instance, an email app may have one activity showing a list of new emails, another activity composing emails, and another one reading emails). Activities collaborate with one another to provide a unified experience for the app's users. However, there is no dependence between any of them.

• Services:

This is a hidden piece of software that runs in the background to complete tasks for long-running tasks or distant operations. The user does not have access to a graphical user interface (for instance it might play music in the background while the user is in a different app).

• Content providers:

This component of the software handles the administration of the pooled dataset. Using this module, you may access and even edit data stored on your computer's file system, in the cloud, or in a SQLite database (as long as the content provider allows it). It's also possible to utilise this part of the library to create and read data that is private to your programme and inaccessible from any other programmes.

• Broadcast receivers:

This is the part of the system that reacts to system-wide announcements. Even though the majority of broadcast receivers come from the system, they are nevertheless able to generate a notice for the user's status bar whenever a broadcast event takes place. This notifies the user when a broadcast event has occurred. In most cases, it serves just as an access point to the other components, and it performs very little actual work.

• Activating components:

The expression of intent is a form of synchronous communication that brings into play three of the four components (i.e. services, activities, and broadcast receivers). Intents are also used to connect separate components to one another at runtime, regardless of whether or not the component is a part of your app.

4. Insight into Breaks, Android App, Threads, Loaders, and Tasks

The market for Android is quite diverse, with a wide variety of devices and several iterations of the operating system. It is important to keep in mind that if your gadget supports a greater number of devices and/or versions, it will undoubtedly call for an increased amount of maintenance and testing, in addition to the associated expenditures. The opposite is also true in this case. You will also need the right fonts, images, and layouts to assist ensure that users have the greatest possible experiences regardless of the features of their screens. You should also think about the variety of sensors or user interface features that are provided by Android. Any Android application must have a minimum of three needed components: an application class, one or more activities, and one or more fragments.

There may be times when you have services for background tasks that are supposed to run continually, but there may also be occasions when you do not. Always make sure that the thread is not stopped in any manner, especially if you want to provide an excellent and fluid user experience. As a result, time-consuming tasks such as calculations, I/O, and network activities, among others, should be executed asynchronously in the background (mainly on a different thread of execution). Therefore, learning how to exploit the concurrency features of the Java programming language is crucial.

5. Making the Right Choice over Needed Tools

For the creation of Android applications, all you need is a computer running Mac OS X or Windows, any flavour of Linux, as well as the open-source Eclipse IDE, the Android Software Development Kit (SDK), and the ADT Plugin. You can find documentation on everything that is required on Google's installation guide, which you may use to learn how to set up your development environment. The guide is available on Google. When developing an app for Android, you need to take into account a number of specific criteria that are exclusive to Android. Listed below are some of them:

• Performance and responsiveness: If you do not reply to user input within five seconds, the operating system will abort the current process and return an error message. (ANR stands for application not responding; the only solution available to you at this time is to forcibly quit your programme.)

• Lags of more than 100ms will be noticed by the users: Because there is only one UI thread, it must never be stopped in any way. This was covered in the last section.

• Limited resources: When the device's battery management tries to put it to sleep, a wake-lock can be used to force it to do a predetermined activity. Wake-locks should be used sparingly because of the negative impact they have on battery life. It is important to avoid polling hardware (such a GPS or accelerometer) when it is not necessary to do so because doing so can quickly drain the battery.
  

You can get an idea of what the Android Application Development course will cover by watching our video that walks you through the first part of the course, the introduction.

Conclusion

Apps are where most people spend the most of their time on their smartphones, which are owned by 77% of Americans today. In point of fact, there were 197 billion app downloads in 2017, which ensures that a profession as an Android App Developer is one that is secure and offers many prospects for advancement. Because there is a lot to learn when it comes to Android App development, you should seriously consider enrolling in the training course offered by NogaTech IT Solutions LLC, which is approved by Google as a Certified Android App Developer. Throughout the course, you will gain hands-on experience by designing six popular applications, which will allow you to not only understand the principles of Android but also the other skills you require. This training is designed to prepare students for the Associate Android Developer (AAD) Exam that is offered by Google. Happy app-developing!