Book Image

Android High Performance Programming

By : Emil Atanasov, Enrique López Mañas, Diego Grancini
Book Image

Android High Performance Programming

By: Emil Atanasov, Enrique López Mañas, Diego Grancini

Overview of this book

Performant applications are one of the key drivers of success in the mobile world. Users may abandon an app if it runs slowly. Learning how to build applications that balance speed and performance with functionality and UX can be a challenge; however, it's now more important than ever to get that balance right. Android High Performance will start you thinking about how to wring the most from any hardware your app is installed on, so you can increase your reach and engagement. The book begins by providing an introduction to state–of-the-art Android techniques and the importance of performance in an Android application. Then, we will explain the Android SDK tools regularly used to debug and profile Android applications. We will also learn about some advanced topics such as building layouts, multithreading, networking, and security. Battery life is one of the biggest bottlenecks in applications; and this book will show typical examples of code that exhausts battery life, how to prevent this, and how to measure battery consumption from an application in every kind of situation to ensure your apps don’t drain more than they should. This book explains techniques for building optimized and efficient systems that do not drain the battery, cause memory leaks, or slow down with time.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Android High Performance Programming
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Code injection


Another big security risk is a code injection. Code injections happen when a piece of software is deliberately modified to insert a module of code, generally malicious, that performs an unintended operation. These unintended operations can range from data stealing, to user surveillance among others. Hence, in this particular case, it is particularly important that applications are signed. An application that has been signed from a trusted manufacturer will not contain injected code.

Georgie Casey, an Irish engineer, proved in an article in 2013 a scary proof of concept. He decompiled SwiftKey, the award-winning keyboard for Android, and injected a piece of code that logged all the keystrokes and sent them through a web service connected to a public website, where they were displayed. The point was to prove that anybody could have done this and upload the manipulated APK to one of the alternative stores. A person looking for a free APK could have downloaded it and used it, sending...