Book Image

Expert Android Programming

Book Image

Expert Android Programming

Overview of this book

Android O brings a number of important changes for the users as well as the developers. If you want to create smart android applications which are fast, lightweight and also highly efficient then this is the book that will solve all your problems. You will create a complex enterprise grade app in this book. You will get a quick refresher of the latest android SDK and how to configure your development environment. Then you will move onto creating app layouts, component and module building, creating smart and efficient UIs. The most important part of a modern day app is how real time they are. With this book, you will create a smooth back-end for your app, ensure dynamic and real time communication between different app layers. As we move on, you will learn to leverage the different Android APIs and create an efficient SQLite data layer for your apps. You will implement effective testing techniques to make your app reliable and robust and finally you will learn to deploy it efficiently. The multiple stages of android development will also be simplified by giving you an industry standard set of best practices.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
10
Building Restaurant finder

Leap into the Android Support Library

One of the greatest strengths of the Android Platform is its support for a huge variety of devices. These include smartphones, tablets, Smart Wears, smart TV's, and even cars. From just a mobile computing platform, Google has used the powers of Android to a great and deeper extent. Looking at the Android distribution, Android 4.x.x version caters for more than 95% of its share. Comparing smartphone OS global market shares from Q1-09 to Q2-16, Android has grown massively from 1.6% to 86.2%. According to Google, 6M+ users are added every month, and that is a great number. At this pace, we can expect 630M users by 2018.

In this chapter, we will look at the Android Support Library features and how they assist us in the project.