Journey of Android Developer in last two Years

When a mobile app developer starts off as working in Android development, he/she may undergo various new problems. These problems turn as great lessons for him/her in future. Some developers might realize that it is their best decision to be involved in Android development, while some may regret. It has been seen that those who consider it to be the best decision are actually the happy, satisfied, and learning ones. While those regretting, may possibly quit the job or are just working for the sake of working.

There are many mobile app developers who have shared their experience over the Internet. They have discussed the problems they underwent, what they learnt from the problems, how did they figured out the solutions, and also have shared some suggestions and recommendations for the upcoming developers. This will help the upcoming developers to speed up and also not to make the same mistakes which earlier developers have made.

Some of the best thoughts that the developers have shared after working for two years as an Android mobile app developer includes the following:

• Check out some Android libraries

The developers might get stuck or encounter some problem while developing the app. It will just waste the time of the developer if he/she wants to solve the problem by himself/herself. Instead, he/she may look out for some Android libraries which can provide them with the solution easily for the problem they encountered. After all, it’s very rare that the problem he/she encountered may have not risen and troubled the earlier developers. The best possible source of going through all Android libraries is Android Arsenal.

• Choose and use Libraries Wisely

Github provides a database of open-source libraries for free for the Android mobile app developers. But, again, the decision is up to the developer, which library or libraries he/she should go with. This decision, as the early developers have stated, should depend on the ratings and reviews a particular library holds. Also, the developer should check out the information about the author of that particular library. He/she should further check the issues which can give a better idea to him/her about the robustness of the library. It is important to ensure that the code provided in the library is reliable, of high-quality and most importantly, bug-free.

• Read codes given by earlier developers

The best developers spend most of their time in reading the codes of other developers than writing the codes themselves. The reason behind this is that until something is read, a new thing cannot be formed. To improve the quality of the code in the development process, it is necessary to learn and read the codes of other developers. Since Android is open-source platform, the developer can easily learn the code by implementing the framework. As stated above, Github has a wide range of Android libraries, so the developer can check the code from the library and how that code was implemented by the developer who framed it.

Read also : Android handily beats the iPhone?

• Maintain coding standards

The developer should write codes in a precise, clean and readable form. This will not only help him/her but also the other team members to understand it easily. The code written should look like a story.

• Use ProGuard

Today, there are more hackers than developers. So, before releasing the developed app on Google PlayStore, make use of ProGuard. ProGuard helps to encrypt the code in such a way that becomes difficult for other developers or hackers to understand or replicate it. ProGuard is available free of cost because it comes as a part of Android SDK. Using ProGuard is easy and creates a good amount of security for the developed app.

• Choose Architecture properly

Most Android developers make use of MVP architecture. MVP stands for Model-View-Presenter. MVP architecture helps to decouple the framed code into multiple layers which can be easily managed. This improves the flexibility of the framed code as well as helps to reduce the maintenance time. MVP provides a good demo for the project.

• Interactive User Interface

User Interface is considered to be bad if the developer needs to explain all the features and its interoperability. A mobile app developer should concentrate on making UI interactive. He/she should think from the perspective of the user while developing and designing the app. If UI is not good, it can result into a good app turning failure while if UI is good, it can result into a not-so-much good app turn into success. The developer should concentrate on creating a good, simple, clean and beautiful user interface. A good user interface ensures customer loyalty.

• Analytics are to be relied upon

To develop a really good app, the developer needs to rely on different analytics tools. These tools help to analyze the overall performance of the app including the track of usage of various parts of the app. Thus, analytics can help in crash reporting as well as tracking of app usage. Crash reporting tools help to find the faults in the code and fix them. Also, the analytics tools will help to bridge the gaps between the perspective of the developer and perspective of the user.

• Creator of Excellent Marketing

For the app developer, his/her task is not complete until he/she indulges in marketing of the app too. A developer needs to be marketing Ninja. After developing a good app, no developer would want to fail just because of not good marketing. In order to gain a large audience for the app, it is necessary for the developer to invest proper time and effort in marketing. To do all this, the developer needs to be aware of the strength and weakness of the competitors.

• Time for optimizing the app

Writing a code is easy but writing an optimized code is difficult. So, the mobile app developer needs to utilize his/her time on writing optimized code. The optimized code refers to the code that runs quickly, uses less memory and occupies relatively less data storage. If the app is unoptimized, it will not be able to work in worse conditions.

• Repeat test cycle

Testing is important phase after developing the app. Testing should be repeated over and over again. Thus, various test cases need to be formed and test cycles repeated. The developer needs to develop various severe situations and check how the app reacts in those situations. If there’s any fault, fix it, and again repeat the tests. It is necessary to spend much time testing so that the ultimate user can get best out of it.

• Avoid Android fragmentation

One of the biggest challenges that an Android developer faces is fragmentation. There are variety of devices which run on Android platform. These devices have different screen size and hardware specifications. There are various device manufacturers who are trying their best to customize Android OS according to the customers. Thus, it is necessary for the developer to use SharedPreferences API, and spend a greater amount of time in creating different layouts which can be customized with different devices.

• Create difficulty for hackers

Since Android is open-source platform, it is more vulnerable to different attacks. All the apps for Android OS can be decompiled, ripped, reverse-engineered and manipulated easily. The developer needs to be aware of securely storing API keys in the app. If the app deals with any sensitive data of the customer, it is necessary for the developer to encrypt all the data. A developer needs to put the right encryption algorithm and also prevent the backup of the app data. Since nothing can be fully secured, the developer just can make things difficult for the hacker to crack the app data.

• Develop on low-end device

Though high-end devices are preferred, but for development purpose, the best option is low-end devices. A high-end device can have many flaws while the developer develops the app. But a low-end, old device full of apps can be the ideal one for mobile app developer.

• Learn design patterns

It is wise to learn different design patterns. When a developer is in the process of developing complex apps, there will be some common problems which he/she might face and which earlier developers might have also faced. Thus, the solutions to the problem lies in design patterns. The developer can learn different design patterns from Github. The most famous design patterns are of Java Design Patterns.Some other important design patterns include Callback, Adapter, Singleton, Strategy, Iterator, Builder, Factory method and Event Driven Architecture.

• Time for giving back

Since all the free libraries from Github are accessible to all developers, it is much evident that some of the earlier developers have made time to build these libraries for the upcoming developers. There are various websites where the developers share their problems and get the solutions. This interaction and helpfulness are the reasons which contribute to the success of the Android community.