Google is giving Android developers a new application programming interface (API) that lets them force users into updating to the latest version of their app. Google revealed at its Android Dev Summit this week that developers will be able to use the new In-app Updates API to create an immediate or flexible in-app update process, which either forces or nudges a user to update an app. Developers can choose which approach is more suitable, depending on how urgent it is that users should update. For example, developers could use the immediate process for critical security updates. After the user opens an app, a full-screen prompt to update is launched that prevents users from using the app until it has been updated. The flexible update allows the user to continue using the app while the update is downloaded. The API should help developers address serious issues if they've rolled out an app with a major bug. However, it also offers developers a way to bump users up to the latest … [Read more...] about Android users now face forced app updates, thanks to Google’s new dev tools
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Android Studio Updated to Handle New Dev Tools, OS Features — ADTmag
News Android Studio Updated to Handle New Dev Tools, OS Features The Android team released Android Studio 3.2 (beta) to accommodate several new dev tools and OS features announced at the recent Google I/O conference. Specifically, those features include: Android JetPack: New libraries, tools and architectural guidance, providing common infrastructure code so developers can focus on making an app unique. Android P Developer Preview: This features MessagingStyle and other notification updates; ImageDecoder for bitmaps and drawables; data cost sensitivity functionality in JobScheduler; display cutout APIs; multi-camera API and more. The new Android App Bundle format: A new way to package apps resulting in smaller APK package sizes to cover the wide variety of Android devices, obviating the need to refactor code to create such smaller apps by including only the needed resources. Other new features include the capability to capture snapshots of an emulator in any state; an Energy … [Read more...] about Android Studio Updated to Handle New Dev Tools, OS Features — ADTmag
Google Introduces New Components & Dev Tools With Jetpack – I/O 2018
May 8, 2018 - Written By Daniel Golightly Just in time for Google I/O 2018, Google has launched a brand new set of components, tools, and architectures, called Jetpack, designed to make getting started building Android apps a much easier process. Since the tools are built up around modern best practices, each is purpose-built to solve problems brought to Google’s attention via developer feedback. That means better handling of background tasks and navigation, as well as better lifecycle management for apps. Moreover, it means backward-compatibility with previous versions of the OS and better memory management for a reduction in app crashes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tools are built around Google’s recent adoption of the Kotlin language.Breaking down the new tools, as Google describes Jetpack, it’s primarily made of components settled into four categories – including Foundation, Architecture, U.I., and Behavior. Although any of those can be adopted into an app … [Read more...] about Google Introduces New Components & Dev Tools With Jetpack – I/O 2018
A handful of new Android dev tools are the highlight of Google I/O (so far)
In developing countries, the number of developers using Android IDE has almost tripled in just two years. With growth like this, Google has made it a priority to better serve its community by doubling down on its effort to serve developers. And it’s doing just that. Here are a handful of our favorite new or updated Android dev tools from day one of Google I/O. Today Google announced Android Jetpack, a way to accelerate app development by bringing together the benefits of Support Library with a larger set of components that allow developers to ditch boilerplate code. It manages background tasks, navigation, and lifecycle management to give devs what they need to differentiate their app from competitors. If that weren’t enough, Google also announced Android KTX, part of Jetpack that further optimizes the Kotlin developer experience “across libraries, tooling, runtime, documentation and training.” According to Google: Tooling continues to improve with Android … [Read more...] about A handful of new Android dev tools are the highlight of Google I/O (so far)
Building for iOS and Android: Getting started with Google’s Flutter
Google's new Flutter cross-platform development platform is intended to build code that runs on iOS and Android. Perhaps best thought of as a competitor to Microsoft's Xamarin, it uses Google's Dart language, with a C++ runtime and a set of user interface widgets for iOS and for Android, based on each target mobile platform's look-and-feel.A public beta has recently been released, and Google is already using Flutter internally for some of its own applications. That's a good sign, so I decided to take a look at how Google expects developers to build and test their Flutter applications.One of the selling points for Flutter is speed of development and testing, building on familiar development tooling and on direct connections to test devices. The set up process is a little complex, and you're going to need to delve into your development system settings to get everything working. That's to be expected for beta code, and I'd expect the final release to have a more sophisticated set up … [Read more...] about Building for iOS and Android: Getting started with Google’s Flutter