Tech Guides - Android Programming

Android Nougat is here, and it's looking pretty tasty. We've been told about the benefits to end users - but what are some of the most exciting features for developers to dive into? We've got five that we think you'll love. 1. Data Saver If your app is a hungry, hungry data devourer then you could be losing users as you burn through their allowance of cellular data. Android 7's new data saver feature can help with that. It throttles background data usage, and signals to foreground apps to use less data. Worried that will make your app less useful? Don't worry - users can 'whitelist' applications to consume their full data desires. 2. Multi-tasking It's the big flagship feature of Android 7 - it's the ability to run two apps on the screen at once. As phones keep getting bigger (and more and more people opt for Android tablets over an iPad) having the option to run two apps alongside each other makes a lot more sense. What does this mean for developers? Well, first, you'll want to tweak your app to make sure it's multi-window ready. But what's even more exciting is the potential for drag and drop functionality between apps, dragging text and images from one pane to another. Ever miss being able to just drag files to attach them to an email like on a desktop? With Android N, that's coming to mobile - and devs should consider updating accordingly. 3. Vulkan API Nougat brings a new option to Android game developers in the form of the Vulkan graphics API. No longer restricted to just OpenGL ES, developers will find that Vulkan provides them with a more direct control over hardware - which should lead to improved game performance. Vulkan can also be used across OSes, including Windows and the SteamOS (Valve is a big backer). By adopting Vulkan, Google has really opened up the possibility for high-performance games to make it onto Android. 4. Just In Time Compiler Android 7 has added a JIT (Just In Time) compiler, which will work to constantly improve the performance of Android Apps as they run. The performance of your app will improve - but the device won't consume too much memory. Say goodbye to freezes and non-responsive devices, and hello to faster installation and updates! This means users installing more and more apps, which means more downloads for you! 5. Notification Enhancements Android 7 changes the way your notifications work on your device. Rather than just popping up at the top of your device, notifications in Nougat will have the option for a direct reply without opening the app, will be bundled together with related notifications, and can even be viewed as a 'heads-up' notification displayed to the user when the device is active. These heads-up notifications are also customizable by app developers - so better start getting creative! How will this option affect your app's UX and UI? There's plenty more... This are just some of the features of Android 7 we're most excited about - there's plenty more to explore! So dive right in to Android development, and start building for Nougat today!

We've been joking for years that in the future we'll be ruled by Android Overlords - we just didn't think it would be an operating system. In 2015, it's predicted that Android shipped over one billion devices - a share of the mobile market equating to almost 80%. In our 2015 Skill Up survey, we also discovered that Android developers were by far the highest paid of mobile application developers. Android dominates our present - so why is it likely going to be vital to the world of tomorrow too? IoT Will Run On Android (Probably) Ask any group of developers what the Next Big Thing will be, and I bet you that more than one of them is going to say Internet of Things. In 2015, Google announced Android stepping into the ring of IoT operating systems when it showed us Brillo. Based on the Android kernal but 'scrubbed down by a Brillo pad', Brillo offers the possibility of a Google-backed cohesive platform for IoT - something potentially vital to a tech innovation increasingly marred by small companies attempting to blaze their own trail off in different directions. If IoT needs to be standardized, what better solution than with Android, the operating system that's already the go-to choice for open-source mobile devices? We've already got Smart Fridges running on Android, smart cars running on Android, and tons of smart-watches running on Android - the rest of the Internet of Things is likely just around the corner. Android is Colonizing Desktop Microsoft is still the King of Desktop, and Windows isn't going anywhere any time soon. However, its attempts to enter the mobile space have been miserable-at-best - a 2.8% share of the mobile market in 2015. What has been more successful is the idea of hybridizing the desktop and the mobile, in particular with the successful line of Surface laptops-come-tablets. But is the reverse likely to happen? Just like we're seeing Android moving from being a mobile OS to being used for IoT, we're also seeing the rise of ideas of Android Desktop. The Remix OS for PC operating system is created by former Google developers, and promises an "Android for PC" experience. Google-proper's own experiments in desktop are currently all based on the Chrome OS - which is growing fast in its market share, particularly among the education and student sectors. I'm an enthusiastic Chromebook owner and user, and when it falls short of meeting the full requirements of a major desktop OS, I'll often turn to my Android device to bridge the gap. According to the Wall Street journal, Google may be thinking similar and is considering folding Chrome OS and Android into one product. Consider the general praise that Microsoft received for Windows 10 mobile, and the successful unification of their platforms under a single OS. It's easy to imagine the integration of Google's mobile and desktop projects into a similar single user experience - and that this hybrid-Android would make a serious impact in the marketplace. For Apple, the Only Way Is Down Apple has banked on being the market in luxury for its mobile devices - and that might spell its doom. The pool of new buyers in the smartphone market is shrinking, and those late adopters are more likely to be price-conscious and enamored with the cheaper options available on Android. (After all, if your grandmother still complains about how much milk costs these days, is she really going to want to shell out $650 for an iPhone?) If Apple wants a bigger share of the market, it's going to need to consider a 'budget option' - and as any brand consultant will tell you, nothing damages the image of luxury like the idea that there's a 'cheap version'. Apple is aware of this, and has historically protested that it's never happening. But in 2015, we saw the number people switching from Android to iOS fall from from 13% to 11%. Even larger, the number of first-time smartphone buyers contributing to Apple's overall sales went from 20% to 11% over the same period. Those are worrying figures - especially when it also looks like more people switched from iOS to Android, than switched from Android to iOS. Apple may be a little damned-if-it-does, damned-if-it-doesn't in the face of Android. You can get a lot for your money if you're willing to buy something which doesn't carry an Apple logo. It's easy to see Android's many producers creating high-powered luxury devices; it's harder to see Apple succeeding by doing the opposite. And are we really ever going to see something like the iFridge? Android's Strength is its Ubiquity Principal to Android's success in the future is its ubiquity. In just six years, it's gone from being a new and experimental venture to over a billion downloads and being used across almost every kind of smart device out there. As an open source OS, the possibilities of Android are only going to get wider. When Androids rule our future, it may be on far more than just our phones. Dive into developing for Android all this week with our exclusive Android Week deals! Get 50% off selected titles, or build your own bundle of any five promoted Android books for only $50.

It’s been a long week of argument and debate, strong words and opinions – and that’s just in the Packt office. But, now the votes have been counted we can announce that Android is the Packt customer’s mobile platform of choice. Across oour website poll and our Twitter poll, Android was the clear winner. Throughout the week, it also proved to be the most popular platform with customers, with sales of our Android eBooks exceeding those for iOS.  As you can see, our Twitter poll, delivered a particularly significant win for Android. Clearly there was a lot of love for Android. But what we really loved about the week was hearing some interesting perspectives from mobile developers around the world. This tweet in particular summed up why we think Android dominated the vote: Fundamentally, it’s all about customization – with Android you have more freedom as a developer, which, for many developers is central to the sheer pleasure of the development experience. Of course, the freedom you get with Android is only a certain type of freedom – and there are, of course trade-offs if you want the openness of such a platform. This article from October 2015 suggested that Android development is ‘30% more expensive than iOS development’ due to the longer amount of time Android projects take – the writers estimate that, on average, you write 40% more code when working with Android over iOS. But with new tools on the horizon likely to make Android development even more efficient (after all, think about what it was like to build for Android back in 2013!), it’s unsurprising that it should prove so popular with many developers. We’re celebrating Android’s win with an additional week of offers – which means you’ve now got another week to pick up our very best Android titles and get ready for a bright and exciting future in the mobile development world!