The Advent of New Android App Development Tools for Building Mobile Apps

As the Android platform is quickly developing at a fast pace, more companies are making tools that allow developers to do almost everything easily, without the need to start from scratch. So far the mobile operating system has become dominant and enterprising with its various versions that support various smartphone models. Third parties are also getting involved in creating mobile applications for their employees, business partners, and customers. With the progress, one can sense that there is no single panacea in this space and one can approach any toolset as that ultimately feature different advantages and drawbacks.

The Evolution of Development Tools

With the growing demand, Android has undergone many improvements and therefore developers have tried to reduce the duration of the development lifecycles. All businesses are looking forward to introducing solutions that cater to consumer’s requirement. Even the simplest of the components need to be understood for the rapid launches of the apps.

The process starts from IDEs to learning tutorials, so that any engineer starts becoming a budding developer. While Java is the official language for developing Android apps, we felt it was necessary also to touch upon other languages.

Need of New Development Tools

While the mobile technology is advancing at the speed of light, it is but natural that apps will become an integral part of the digital ecosystem.  The difficulty and cost of mobile app development can’t be escaped easily, but innovative companies will still manage to lower their overheads. Some developers target more than one mobile platform; while some are eager to target the other platforms of web applications as well.

Android app Developers are attending to complex problems while developing even the simplest possible applications. Using the latest development tools though in building Android apps, one can get your mobile application development project up and running quickly. Even one can keep their clients engaged and interested in the business matter with the help of mobile apps.

As we see there is so much information out there, it can be hard to navigate. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of Android development tools so you can find all you might need in one place.

Wide Range of Android Tools

App Development Tools are divided into four macro-categories:

1. Plugins
2. Libraries
3. Language Resources
4. Editors and IDEs

• Editors and IDEs
  1. Android Studio – The official IDE
  2. Eclipse – Used in coding Java but can be expanded to other languages via plugins.
  3. DroidEdit – An Android text and code editor to use on Android platforms.
  4. Cordova – Used in Mobile apps with HTML, CSS, and JS, it’s one of the best tools if you want to create hybrid apps.
  5. Corona – A 2D-development platform used in games and one of the best for cross-platform development.
  6. Titanium – It allows for the creation of native apps for iOS, Android and Windows phone and runs off a single JavaScript codebase.
  7. Xamarin – Widely featured among all developers and a very impressive IDE for native Android with open source.

• Some Android Language Resources
• Java –  It has its own development kit, but there are plenty of other SDKs out there too.
• Codecademy – It is one of the best platforms for code learning that is available on net base with an interactive feature.
• Udemy – Udemy, which features dozens of both highly specific and generic Java learning courses.
• Mkyong – Very specific tutorials and guides on Java development to become skilled coders.

• Well-known Android Libraries
  1. Retrofit – The best solution for organizing API calls.
  2. AndroidView Animations – Library with very simple syntax to get regular view animations.
  3. Event Bus – Helps in making communication between parts of your application very smooth.
  4. ButterKnife – Very lightweight library that creates boilerplate template code.
  5. Picasso – Mostly used in download images for apps.

• Important Android Plug-ins
  1. Import Drawables – Allows importing of drawable at different resolutions and other image-based functionalities.
  2. GenyMotion – The most reliable testing and emulation tools for Android.
  3. Robotium Recorder – The perfect framework for both native and hybrid applications, both on emulators and Android devices.
  4. Android Material Design Icon - One of the easiest ways to create icons at just the right size and resolution.

Recent Changes in Android App Development

The latest updates of Android app development are:

• Android Studio has become the stable IDE as it has given ease to the development process.
• Gradle has newly replaced Apache Ant as the latest project automation tool that defines external dependencies and signs with correct configurations.
• For Android OS, Lollipop has been the best modification.
• The Material design of Android UI has completely changed the look and has completely adjusted to the Android ecosystem.
• The engine named ART has become revolutionary as it organizes the application in a way that it breaks byte-code in multiple files.

Conclusion

We hope that the above brief will help experienced developers looking to hone their skills. Additionally, this is an excellent way to start for all Android App developers.