Book Image

Mastering Android Application Development

By : Antonio Pachon
Book Image

Mastering Android Application Development

By: Antonio Pachon

Overview of this book

There are millions of Android apps out there for people to download – how do you make sure yours has the edge? It’s not always about innovation and ideas – the most successful apps are those that are able to satisfy customer demands – they’re the ones that look the best, the fastest, and the easiest and most intuitive to use. This book shows you how to create Android applications that do precisely that – it has been designed help you consider and answer those questions throughout the development process, so you can create applications that stand out against the crowd. Learn how to create exemplary UIs that contribute to a satisfying user experience through the lens of Material Design, and explore how to harness the range of features within the Android SDK to help you. Dive deeper into complex programming concepts and discover how to leverage concurrency and navigate memory management and image handling. You’ll also find further guidance on testing and debugging so you can guarantee that your application is reliable and robust for users. Beyond this you’ll find out how to extend your app and add greater functionality, including notifications, location services, adverts and app billing (essential if you want to properly monetize your creation!). To make sure you have confidence at every stage in the process, the book also shows you how to release your app to the Play store – to make sure your maximising your efforts to create a popular Android application!
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Mastering Android Application Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Push notifications


Push notifications are important to engage users and provide real-time updates. They are useful to remind the user that there is an action pending. For instance, in the Qkr! app created by MasterCard, one can order food and drink in some restaurants, and if the user hasn't paid after a considerable period of time, they send a notification to remind the user that he/she needs to pay before leaving the restaurant.

They also work very well when we need to tell the user that we have new content or that other users have sent them a message. Any change that happens on the server side and requires informing the user is the perfect scenario to use notifications.

Notifications can also be sent locally from our own app; for example, we can schedule an alarm and show a notification. They don't necessarily have to be sent from a server.

They are shown at the top of the screen in the status bar, in a place called the notification area.

The minimum information required for a notification...