Android developers are in great demand – Reasons

Smartphone market is getting hotter: It is next to impossible for any tech savvy person to ignore the importance of smart phones in recent trend. It is already predicted that the smart phone market is going to be 200% larger in next year. Already we have seen a stupendous growth of smart phone market in past few years. Moreover the market is getting even hotter due to the entry of world’s top IT giants into the smart phone market with their products like Google’s Android operating system, Microsoft windows 8.1 and Apple’s iOS. On the other hand, it is providing a great platform for the software developer and web developers to showcase their talent by developing enterprise standard smart phone apps which can be a native app or a web app or a hybrid one.

Top features of Android 5.0 Lollipop

Google is finally out with its latest update on Android – Lollipop. As per industry experts, this is the first significant change since the introduction of Ice Cream Sandwich. The design changes introduced in this version of the Android update is a considerable one. It seems this time Google had made a point to introduce both aestheticism and unique innovation in the Android 5.0 Lollipop. The modern features of this Android update reflect those of iOS 8. The new design is quite intimidating on the OS. This factor renders consistency to Lollipop and this is where all the parts fit perfectly together. In addition there are several mind-blowing extra features that are sure to cut a mark with the users.

What you should know about Hypernext Android Creator (HAC)?

Android is the buzz word in the Mobile sector with the share of 42% across various devices globally. With the growing usage of Android Smartphones new development tools are made available for users to create smart Android applications using Windows PC and Mac. There are various Android tools that can be used to develop amazing android applications. These customized tools make it easier for android mobile app development even without the knowledge of Java or the Android SDK and is called HyperNext Android Creator (HAC).

This tool is available in english format syntax which is made easier to read for beginners who are new to the development world. And provides a visual designer for laying out screens. It can run most of the programs within its graphical user interface and upload them onto an Android Emulator or Android device via wireless. In order to develop with HAC, Java JDK, Android SDK and Apple Quicktime must be installed. These are free to download and use. Applications that are developed on HAC gives support on different devices amazingly. HyperNext is major programming language and easy-to-use, learn and implement. It operates based on HyperCard that takes software as a heap of cards.

It is worth mentioning that the app developers always face challenges associated with Java standards since no set standard is used for developing them. For this issue, many tools have been developed which has help in Android conversion activities. The HyperNext interface has just one design window and simple toolbar and creates highly interactive apps. There are three modes: Design, Preview and Run. Controls such as buttons can be rapidly placed and their English-like scripts edited with its easy to use Script Editor.

Eclipse and Netbeans are east to use in HAC. It is a self contained software application basically designs flawless android applications with much ease. It shares many general features such as it can save, load, and create new projects. HAC has loaded it will display two main windows, the Design window and the Tool Bar which together allow cards to be created and controls placed upon them. A third global window called the Mode Switcher will also appear and shows three buttons that allow quick movement between the Design, Preview and Run modes. When switching from Design to Run mode the project is automatically saved and when switching back the saved project is reloaded.

Android emulators are virtual android devices check the applications developed in HAC. HyperNext is a programming language. Its out-of-the features are unique and easy to understand. They are as follows: 

• English-like statements.
• Software generally has a card based organization.
• Variables are type-less and are all stored as strings(text).
• Variables are either Global or Local.
• Global procedures are declared in the MainCode section.
• Control handlers and their procedures are local and hence protected.
• Created with the Standard Edition of HelpNDoc:
• Easily create HTML Help documents
• Each control can have many local procedures.
• Specific commands for numeric and string processing.
• Variables can be single line, multi-line or array-like.
• Runtime error reporting can be dynamically switched on or off

The Android OS is especially designed to run on Mobile phones and to take care of the life-cycle of an app so that several apps could simultaneously co-exist in memory together, with only the front app being fully active. Furthermore the Android OS is supposed to be responsible for quitting apps when it feels they are no longer needed so the Android app guidelines. However many users want a Quit button and so HAC apps have one by default.

A HAC application runs in memory all the time and even if the user presses the Back Button or another app takes control, the HAC app will remain in the background and active, so it can play music, communicate with the web or number crunch etc. All HAC apps show an icon in the Status Bar so users know their HAC built app is still running.

Although background apps are not supposed to take resources it’s clear that they do and having several apps in the background can noticeably slow down the system response to such an extent that the user must restart their device. As many apps have no way to quit them "App Killer" programs have become some of the most popular downloads.

With HAC apps the background task is set to idle unless the code is actually doing something so a typical HAC app should have little resource overhead. If sent to the background it can easily be made foreground again by pressing and holding the Home button down, then choosing the HAC app icon.

HAC currently only works reliably with English keyboards as at this time the Android OS is still not fully compatible with other character sets. It supports GPS location functionality that can run in the background and continuously log readings. In the near future this will be enabled as it is especially useful on tablet devices that have much larger screen sizes than Smartphones.

HAC currently just supports the following 5 permissions but there are literally hundreds available within the Android OS.

1. Write External Storage: This is always enabled as application has to be installed to the SD card or external storage.

2. Internet: Used when app needs to access the internet such as when sending an email or requesting a web page.

3. Camera: Used when app needs to access the camera.

4. Location - Used to access the coarse location such as determining the cell on which device is connected.

5. Used to access GPS to return position coordinates etc.

HAC gives the exact blend of customized, highly interactive, user-friendly and efficient technologies integrated in Android app that is sure to deliver flexible, richer and greater operational control over the system. And needless to say, it does produce some of the most amazing applications that mobile users love to avail.

We provide android widget development services. If you would like to hire android app developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Guidelines for Android Mobile Design

Android offers an outstanding platform for mobile design and goes a long way in creating an effective app that offers a brilliant experience across numerous devices of diverse combinations of aspect ratio, pixel density and screen size. The diversity of Android throws a number of challenges to the designer and here we bring to you some crucial guidelines in terms of pixels, user experience, layouts, styles and themes that need to be considered for creation of successful Android apps.

Pixels

An app’s perceived quality is largely dependent on the visual design, which also enhances the usability. Most of the developers are well-versed with the UI patterns, but only a handful has the requisite visual design skills. You need to concentrate on the following in order to deliver an experience that is aesthetically pleasing.

• Nice Scaling: The Android platform comes with diverse screen densities, with no definite resolutions for targeting but a measurement format for layouts widgets and graphics that is somewhat density independent. So, it is always advisable to optimize the graphics for a varying range of screen densities. Make sure to test the designs across low-end devices and optimize resources that do not scale well.
• State Friendly: Significant confirmations of selections and clicks are provided by the touch states. During customization of the widgets like buttons, the creation of drawables with respect to all required states such as disabled, pressed, focused and default is crucial. The size is also a significant factor. Touch targets should usually be minimum 45 density pixels in height and width.
• Use Fonts: Roboto and Droid Sans are the two major fonts of Android. However, any fonts can be roped in for an application in TTF format.
• Utilize 9-patch Drawables: These facilitate stretching and scaling of PNGs in a pre-defined manner. Markings alongside the top-left edge outline the stretchable regions. Optionally, the padded content region can be defined through markings alongside the bottom-right edgings. 9-patches are crucial for creation and customization of UI widgets.

User Experience

As is the case with any other platform, Android app development has conventions and patterns. These help in formation of expectations regarding the behavior of an unfamiliar app.

• Design of User Flows: Android apps contain a set of screens, at the basic level. Navigation within the stacks is possible with the help of buttons, list items and action bar icons. There is also the up affordance which facilitates the navigation along the information hierarchy. It is good to try user flows with prospective users through mock-ups or wireframes and iterate. Ideally, prototypes on real devices should be leveraged because the same facilitates testing within realistic mobile environments.
• Use of UI patterns: UI patterns should be considered as tools rather than constraints, because they provide recognizable hints regarding interaction and navigation, maintaining platform consistency. Some of the common Android patterns are the action bar, the dashboard pattern, the workspaces pattern and the ribbon menu. These are the most effective tools for carving out app navigation and layouts.
• Design Responsively: With varying screen areas, Android is somewhat similar to responsive web design, wherein rendering support to each screen is the target. You can avoid premature optimization through focusing on popular devices and target users. The ideal option is to target middle sized popular phones and then go for requisite optimization with user flows and alternate layouts for specifically small tablets and devices.
• Comprehension of Mobile Interactions: Users interact with mobile apps in a different manner than with websites or PC software. In case of mobile apps, most interactions utilize touch input and are often capable of measuring in seconds.
• Optimization of First Use: Installation of apps often is a response to real world problems. So, it is always wise to render a feel of the experience. You can also think of launching a tutorial with the app.

Layouts, Themes and Styles

Let us now discuss some of the best practices for crafting performance-oriented and maintainable layouts. The commonly used layouts are Linear Layout and Relative Layout, and sometimes Grid Layout.

• Automation with framework: The Android framework makes room for automated resource switching revolving around the folder structure. This implies that there is the possibility of having distinct graphic layouts and assets for diverse screen sizes as well as densities.
• Extraction of values: Keeping the layout XML free from dimensions and colors is a good practice. You can separately define them and reference in the layouts, thereby enhancing the visual consistency and ensuring that things are easy to change at a later stage. Extraction of these values facilitates dimension switching across diverse platform versions, orientations and screen sizes.
• Use of themes and styles: An effective means to ensure a maintainable XML layout is to segregate the positioning concern from the styling concern. Every Layout View is required to possess a height and a width attribute. Sets of attributes that recur can be moved to styles whereas widget styles that universally occur across the app may be moved to the theme.
• Optimization: The merge and include XML tags facilitate the dropping of reusable sections of UI into the layouts, thereby minimizing duplicate XML as identical set of views appear in manifold layout configurations. Lint is a comparatively new addition for Android Developer Tools, which creates warnings regarding potential performance optimizations after scanning the project resources.
• Debugging: The Hierarchy Viewer tool makes it convenient to spot bugs through inspection of an app’s layout tree.

Hope you are now acquainted with the major tools and techniques pertaining to Android mobile design. Remember that the most effective apps rely a lot on clean visual design and platform consistency.

We provide android widget development services. If you would like to hire mobile app developers from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Android app revenue analysis: iPhone crushed by Android growth

Android has taken over – a true fact. Any software application which runs on android devices like Android tablets, smartphones, google TV and other devices is starting to get perceived as a good app and has the probability of getting a larger number of downloads. Last year Android phone sales volumes soared higher than iPhone sales volumes. Google is marketing its Google Play store remarkably and sends off GooglePlay app with every Android OS which ensures all Android devices have access to the Android app marketplace. This brings forth great benefits, with more and more people loving these advanced android smartphones and helping in turn to spread the word.

The facts might be older as we speak – Android has powered hundreds of millions of mobile devices in more than 190 countries around the world. It's the largest installed base of any mobile platform and growing fast – every day another million users power up their Android devices for the first time and start looking for apps, games and other digital content.

Android users download more than 1.5 billion apps and games from Google Play each month, thus becoming the fastest-growing mobile OS. Every day more than 1 million new Android devices are activated worldwide. It caters to the diversified needs by building powerful, differentiated applications that use the latest mobile technologies, thus giving you everything you desire to build best-in-class app experiences and drive stronger growth in app consumption. Android apps have hundreds of millions of users across a wide range of devices right from phones to tablets and much beyond.

Android tools work wonders by creating flawless apps that look great and take advantage of the hardware capabilities available on each device. It automatically adapts to any user interface resolution to look its best on each device, while giving you as much control as you want over your UI on different device types. If you wish to get your apps in front of millions of users at Google's scale, then android app development is the best choice.

Google Play is the top-notch marketplace for selling and distributing Android apps. Google is making more money off Android. If you want to publish an app on Google Play, you reach the huge installed base of Android. Google has created software stack for creating comprehensive Mobile Applications and Software to realize the full potential of one’s Mobile handset and its possibilities and therefore it has encapsulated all automation features in one OS called Android. Hence it’s a sure fire idea that developments are given the power and freedom to create customized mobile applications while taking advantage of everything that the mobile handset has to offer. Google Play revenue growth in the last month was 17.9% globally while iOS app revenue actually shrunk by 0.7%. Google has the highest Android activations around 700,000 a day. Last year it had $29.3 billion in revenue which is now being targeted at $36 billion to $38 billion range.

Android is growing faster than ever. Google 13% of total revenue is due to the android usage. No matter what you do, there’s no way to stop openness. A year ago around 20,000 new devices were being activated every day and the number has now grown to 340,000.

Android market share varies by location. In July 2012, Android's market share in the United States was 52%, and rose to 90% in China. Day by day more users are concerned with deploying their apps in android device as it is the hot technology and much in demand now.

According to Asymco Analyst a growth curve based on the data available, shows that Android has grown nearly three times faster than iOS. While iOS is available only on handful of devices, Android is available on more than 100 devices, the variety and diversity leads to the win-win situation for Android.

iOS growth is limited by the ramp rates of a limited portfolio of products. Android growth is limited by how quickly vendors can bring out products. In October 2012, there were approximately 700,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from Google Play. In the second quarter of 2009 Android had a 2.8% share of worldwide smartphone shipments. By the fourth quarter of 2010 this had grown to 33% of the market, becoming the top-selling smartphone platform. By the third quarter of 2011, Gartner estimated that more than half (52.5%) of the smartphone market belongs to Android. By the third quarter of 2012 Android had a 75% share of the global smartphone market according to the research firm IDC. From September 2012, 500 million devices had been activated with 1.3 million activations per day. Android is surely getting on top in respect to other mobile technologies and getting more demanding by its extensive usable features.

If you are toying with an idea to get mobile app development done and you would like to know what makes us a solid team of expert android app developers, visit us at Mindfire Solutions.