Road to Creating Apps for Android

By Erika Smith-Jones


Google developed the Android operating system so any person with the appropriate knowledge can build apps to operate on an Android smartphone or tablet. Google's approach to producing smartphones is entirely opposite to Apple Inc, who prefer control over the applications that individuals can add to their iPhones. The open design of Android indicates that you may develop anything you want and people can download and install the software. Numerous coders have jumped ship from iPhone applications to developing software for the Android on account of the flexibility it provides them.

When you develop an app for the Apple iPhone it is passed to a reviewer who ascertains if your application meets certain criteria to be made available on iTunes or if it's appropriate for the app store. Many apps don't get released due to Apple's censorship rules. In addition to this, research firm, NDP Group claimed that one half of all smartphone purchases are for Android smartphones. By the end of 2010 some Thirty-two million handsets were running Android. It's no surprise that everyone is researching methods to build Android apps.

Android applications are coded in Java. You will need to know this language or work with a programmer who does. You need to download and install the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) from Google. The SDK has classes, libraries, code examples along with an interface to test your new Android software. You can also download the Google APIs Add-On extension, which includes libraries specific to Google's wide variety of web services.

You would typically design the gui in Adobe Illustrator and save the graphics in vector format. Having said that, it's better to find a good designer to make the GUI. The libraries in the SDK additionally have some standard vector graphics that you can use when developing an Android app. Should your application creates info that should be saved and referenced later like a weight tracker in which you key in your weight and plot trends with a chart over time you'll need to save the data in a SQLite database. You will in addition need to craft the necessary code to create, write, delete and retrieve data from the database.

Getting your completed application from your personal computer to your Android smartphone is a touch bit complex because it must be converted, compiled then deployed. Android utilizes a system known as Dalvik Virtual Machine. Your Java Class files need to be converted to .dex files by using a tool known as DX. After this is successfully done it must be packaged in to an .apk (Android Package) file using something referred to as the Android Asset Packing Tool. Only when this is completed can the app be deployed to an Android handset.

The good thing is there are huge libraries of freely available code on the Android developers website and on 3rd party sites which offer lessons on how to get cracking developing your first Android app.




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