Android Development In 2023

Introduction

Starting from the 2008 release of Google's Mobile OS Android it has been more than 14 years. We all have seen the user interface's growth of being more responsive and smooth. Android development career is growing exponentially because of the need for new applications.

In this article, we will discuss, what you should learn if you are developing an android application in 2023, and some common and new recommendations for android app developers.

Java vs Kotlin

If you love learning android development using Java then this is going to disappoint you a little bit but there is one good thing if you have a good understanding of Java then it is not taking so long to learn Kotlin for you. 

Why Kotlin is a Better Option for android development?

This is important to know that Google is really pushing Kotlin to become the preferred language in android development. And this has been true nowadays. With the release of Kotlin in 2016 it has become popular because of its new feature. Kotlin is not only concise but it is also safer, better, and null-safe(which java developers always suffer about). If you wanna use modern tools and libraries such as Jetpack Compose or Coroutines (asynchronous programming) this is not possible without Kotlin.

So choosing Kotlin over java is always a good option.

No more XML Part

Developers who are working in the App development industry know about the mess of XML part of any android application. To remove this Google announce Jetpack Compose in July 2021 for building apps better and faster.

So what hack is Jetpack Compose?

"Jetpack Compose is Android’s recommended modern toolkit for building native UI. It simplifies and accelerates UI development on Android. Quickly bring your app to life with less code, powerful tools, and intuitive Kotlin APIs."

Jetpack has a collection of android libraries that provide best practices with backward compatibility in your Android apps.

Developers struggle enough in making UI in XML. Sometimes you make a good layout in XML and it messes up on the run, misbehaving UI component,  then the good news is it is going to make your life easier with the layout. Jetpack Compose is good enough to build UI with a simple approach and less code. You can combine XML layout with Compose layout. You can convert your whole project into Compose step by step. So in the next future, there is no use of XML layout anymore compose is going to make it better with less overhead.

Advantages of Jetpack Compose

1. Less code
   Do more with less code and avoid entire classes of bugs, so the code is simple and easy to maintain.
2. Intuitive
   Just describe your UI, and Compose takes care of the rest. As the app state changes, your UI automatically updates.
3. Accelerate Development
   Compatible with all your existing code so you can adopt when and where you want. Iterate fast with live previews and full Android Studio support. 
4. Powerful
   Create beautiful apps with direct access to the android platform APIs and built-in support for Material Design Dark Theme, animations, and more.
5. Interoperability
   You can use Compose with XML and its interoperability is just great. You can use Compose in production without needing to worry about stability from a pure UI building perspective, Compose is superior to XML.
6. Android newbies
   Learn the basics of XML, then learn Compose.

Kotlin Coroutines vs Threads

Coroutines were introduced in Kotlin version 1.3 to style a new way of concurrency. The Coroutines are lightweight threads means it doesn't create new thread although use a predefined thread pool and smart scheduling to do more tasks.

Android development deals with different tasks that have a lot of Asynchronous or non-blocking programming. Kotlin provides this support with coroutines on embedded language. So leave Thread AsynTasks as this is the old way and start using Coroutines with Kotlin.

Other Trends you can look out for,

1. Android Instant Apps
2. Motion Layout
3. Normalizing 5G Technology
4. Motion Layout
5. IoT
6. AI and Machine Learning

Learn Jetpack Compose with Kotlin

I am starting a new series of articles that will cover the Jetpack Compose starting from scratch. In this, you will learn all the basics of building Android Apps with Compose and develop various types of applications.

We will start with the basics, If you are already familiar with the topic you can skip it and move on. You can find all the articles under my profile by clicking here Ravi sahu.

So why you should learn Jetpack Compose?

So as we have discussed that Kotlin is pushed forward for android development than java and is also preferred by Google. Similarly, Compose layout is preferred to use than XML layout. Jetpack Compose not only makes it easy to design an efficient layout for your app but also provides high performance and the ability to easily write a custom layout.

Conclusion

So, now we have seen how the android Development pace is going to take place in the near future and we need to get updated with the new features that are obviously going to be on-demand in the industry. So take your Application development journey to the next level with the Jetpack compose. Feel free to reach me if you have any concerns and please share your valuable view on my article (i am already curious). Thanks for reading, Hope to see you in the upcoming series of articles on Learn Jetpack Compose with Kotlin.