Android App Development

Android App Development

Android App development is the process by which applications are created for devices running the Android operating system. 

Android apps can be written using Kotlin, Java, and C++ languages" using the Android software development kit (SDK), while using other languages is also possible. 

How to create android app

Android Studio

Android Studio is the official integrated development environment (IDE) for Google's Android operating system, built on JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA software and designed specifically for Android development.

It is available for download on Windows, macOS and Linux based operating systems.

Android Studio was announced on May 16, 2013, at the Google I/O conference. It was in early access preview stage starting from version 0.1 in May 2013, then entered beta stage starting from version 0.8 which was released in June 2014.

The first stable build was released in December 2014, starting from version 1.0. At the end of 2015, Google dropped support for Eclipse ADT, making Android Studio the only officially supported IDE for Android development.

On May 7, 2019, Kotlin replaced Java as Google's preferred language for Android app development. Java and C++ is still supported.

Latest android studio Version at the time of writing this post is Giraffe | 2022.3.1 which has the following features -

👉 Live Edit to update composables in real time

This feature lets us update composables in emulators and physical devices in real time. We can see the UI changes on the running device without re-deploying our app.

👉New UI preview 

Android Studio Giraffe supports the new UI theme from IntelliJ. To use this feature

Go to Android Studio > Settings > Appearance & Behavior. 

We can 

Simplified main toolbar with new VCS, Project, and Run widgets

Tool windows have a new layout

New Light and Dark color themes with improved contrast and consistent color palettes

New icon set for improved legibility

👉 New API support for Compose Animation Preview

To use these additional APIs with Compose Animation Preview, upgrade to Android Studio Giraffe Canary 3 and Compose 1.4.0-alpha04 or higher.

👉Support for Grammatical Inflection API

This feature is most helpful this new feature lets us personalize the UI for our users by adding translations inflected based on our user's grammatical gender when required. We can add grammatically masculine, feminine, or neutral translations. When no grammatically inflected translation is provided for a string, Android displays the default translation for the language (available as of Android 14 Developer Preview 1).

👉View and manage processes in the Device Explorer

In the Device Explorer, files and related actions are located in the Files tab. In the new Processes tab, view a list of debuggable processes for the connected device. From there we can also select a process and perform a kill , force-stop , or attach the debugger to a given process .

👉New Android SDK Upgrade Assistant

This feature helps to save time and effort when updating the targetSdkVersion -

To open the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant 

Go to Tools > Android SDK Upgrade Assistant. In the Assistant panel, select the API level that you want to upgrade to for guidance.

👉Enhanced diagnostic tools and bug reporting

Click Help > Collect Logs and Diagnostic Data. A dialog appears that lets us choose which files to include.

Check or un-check specific files to include in our diagnostic report. Click on a specific file in the menu to see a preview of it.

When We are ready to export the diagnostic report, agree to the terms and click Create.

Select the location where we want to save the diagnostic report zip file and click Save.

As part of this enhancement, the bug reporting template (Help > Submit feedback) has also been updated to emphasize the importance of attaching log files. If we file a bug, be sure to attach logs because they help us isolate the issue and are an essential first step to our debugging process.

👉Download info during sync

The Sync tool window now includes a summary of time spent downloading dependencies and a detailed view of downloads per repository. This view updates live as sync takes place. We can use this information to determine whether unexpected dependency downloads are negatively impacting our sync performance. 

For More Information Click on Android Studio Giraffe

Features

👉Gradle-based build support
👉Android-specific refactoring and quick fixes
👉Lint tools to catch performance, usability, version compatibility and other problems

👉ProGuard integration and app-signing capabilities

👉Template-based wizards to create common Android designs and components
👉A rich layout editor that allows users to drag-and-drop UI components, option to preview layouts on multiple screen configurations
👉Support for building Android Wear apps
👉Built-in support for Google Cloud Platform, enabling integration with Firebase Cloud Messaging (Earlier 'Google Cloud Messaging') and Google App Engine

👉Android Virtual Device (Emulator) to run and debug apps in the Android studio
👉Once an app has been compiled with Android Studio, it can be published on the Google Play Store. The application has to be in line with the Google Play Store developer content policy

List of Android Studio Version and Release Date

Version	Release Date
1.0	December 2014
1.1	February 2015
1.2	April 2015
1.3	July 2015
1.4	September 2015
1.5	November 2015
2.0	April 2016
2.1	April 2016
2.2	September 2016
2.3	March 2017
3.0	October 2017
3.1	March 2018
3.2	September 2018
3.3	January 2019
3.4	April 2019
3.5	August 2019
3.6	February 2020
4.0	May 2020
4.1	Oct 2020
4.2	May 2021
Arctic Fox (2020.3.1)	July 2021
Bumblebee (2021.1.1)	January 2022
Chipmunk (2021.2.1)	May 2022
Dolphin (2021.3.1)	September 2022
Electric Eel (2022.1.1)	January 2023
Flamingo (2022.2.1)	April 2023
Giraffe (2022.3.1)	July 2023
Hedgehog (2023.1.1)	TBD

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