All you need to know about Android Development!
Android Applications are a part of everyone’s life, isn’t it? Be it for social media, news reading applications, or fitness apps. Android is everywhere!!
Enthusiasts who are new to this skill and feel that Android Development could be one of the skills they would want to dive in!! Then you are reading the right article.
So what is Android Development?
Android Development is a process wherein you create applications for devices running the Android Operating System using languages like Java, Kotlin, etc. Android Software Development Kit (SDK) is used in the process. Android Studio is the official integrated development environment (a platform) for Google’s Android operating system, built on JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA software and designed specifically for Android development.
Now…Let’s talk about the existing languages used and what all are and would be prioritized in the coming time.
Java in Android
Java has been the most prominent language in android. Although Android does not use established Java standards, that is, Java SE and ME. This prevents compatibility between Java applications written for those platforms and those written for the Android platform. Android reuses the Java language syntax and semantics, but it does not provide the full class libraries and APIs bundled with Java SE or ME. Android provides its own GUI classes and does not provide Java AWT, Swing, or JavaFX. It does not support the full Java Beans API.
Let’s talk about the current scenario in Android Development.
Kotlin in Android
In 2017, Google announced that it will officially support Kotlin in Android as a “first-class” language. In 2019, Google announced that Kotlin is its preferred language for Android app developers. Kotlin is a new programming language developed by JetBrains. Like Java, which is the default language for Android development, Kotlin is a language that runs on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine), and it’s already possible to use Kotlin and many other JVM languages for Android development. Android doesn’t use the JVM exactly, but the Java roots are strong, and Kotlin’s interworking with Java has made it a popular choice for developers. Official Google support will be a huge boost for the nascent language, however, and will presumably make working with Kotlin on Android a lot more natural.
Talking about UI design in Android, Native Android Apps layout (front-end) is designed using XML.
Cross-Platform App Development
Cross-platform apps are apps that don’t need to be built separately for Android and iOS. So you get to build just one app and deploy it on both platforms, cutting your development work in half and increasing your reach by double. In the technological world, cross-platform app development is gaining attention. Languages that are the future of these hybrid apps are-
React Native used in developing applications for Android, Android TV, iOS, macOS, tvOS, Web, Windows, and UWP by enabling developers to use React’s framework along with native platform capabilities. With the power of JavaScript, React Native lets you iterate at lightning speed. React primitives render to native platform UI, meaning your app uses the same native platform APIs other apps do. It provides a core set of platform-agnostic native components like View, Text, and Image that map directly to the platform’s native UI building blocks.
Flutter used to develop applications for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and the web from a single codebase. The first version of Flutter was known as the codename “Sky” and ran on the Android operating system. Flutter apps are written in the Dart language and make use of many of the language’s more advanced features. The major components of Flutter include the Dart platform, Flutter engine, Foundation library, Design-specific widgets, Flutter DevTools.
I hope this article would give you a gist about Android Development and would help you kickstart your career in the same !!
