Jetpack Compose beta, #AndroidDevChallenge, Android 12, WorkManager, Android for Cars library, RecyclerView, Coroutines, and a podcast
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
NiA35 in Video and Podcast Form
This Now in Android is also offered in video and podcast form. It’s the same content, but with less reading required. The article version (keep reading!) is still the place to come for links to all of the content that’s covered.
Video
Podcast
Click on the link below, or just subscribe to the podcast in your favorite client app.
Jetpack Compose Beta
It’s here! It’s finally here! the beta release of Jetpack Compose! To celebrate, we created this show, with overviews, some Q&A, and…
MAD Skills Kotlin+Jetpack and MotionLayout, AndroidX, Hilt and WorkManager articles, MotionTags screencasts, and an ADB podcast episode on WindowManager
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
NiA33 in Video and Podcast Form
This Now in Android is also offered in video and podcast form. It’s the same content, but with less reading required. The article version (keep reading!) is still the place to come for links to all of the content that’s covered.
Video
Podcast
Click on the link below, or just subscribe to the podcast in your favorite client app.MAD Skills
Kotlin & Jetpack APIs, a new course on Navigation, several articles, and a podcast episode
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
It’s been a few weeks since the previous Now in Android went live, before the holidays — let’s see what’s been happening in the Android universe in the meantime.
NiA32 in Video and Podcast Form
This Now in Android is also offered in video and podcast form. It’s the same content, but with less reading required. The article version (keep reading!) is still the place to come for links to all of the content that’s covered.
Video
Podcast
Click on the link below, or just subscribe to the…
It’s all my fault
I’m sorry. I’m soooo sorry. Everything in the country, in society, in the entire universe is in such a terrible state right now, and it seems to just get worse all the time. So on behalf of me, I sincerely and deeply apologize. Because it is clearly my fault.
Let me explain.
The Accident
Way back in 2019 (remember that year? Remember how exciting it was, when we could do things like leave our house, meet friends, or go to work? Oh, those carefree days of our youth), I had a freak biking accident. I’d like to say that I was flying…
The man walked to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up to his wife.
“Honey! I need a present!”
The man’s wife yelled back, “A present? You want me to give you a present?”
He said, “No, I need to give a present. I’m going to this thing and I need to bring a gift. For a baby. Or for his parents. It’s not clear. But I have to get rolling; Bob and Pete are out front waiting for me.”
His wife came to the top of the stairs. She said, “So you want me to suddenly come up…
Modern Android development content, documentation enhancements, AndroidX releases, articles, and a podcast episode
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
NiA31 in Video and Podcast Form
This Now in Android is also offered in video and podcast form. It’s the same content, but with less reading required. The article version (keep reading!) is still the place to come for links to all of the content that’s covered.
Video
Podcast
Click on the link below, or just subscribe to the podcast in your favorite client app.
Modern Android Development
Lazy Initialization
In the previous article, I showed how content providers (which show up in an app’s merged manifest file) automatically load some libraries and modules at launch time.
In this article, I will cover the use of the AndroidX App Startup library to have more control over when and how those libraries get loaded. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll see how to save time at app startup along the way.
Auto-Init with the App Startup Library
The simplest way to use App Startup is to implicitly use its content provider to initialize other libraries. You do this by telling App Startup how to initialize these other libraries…
Of Content Providers and Automatic Initialization
I started playing with the AndroidX App Startup library recently. It reached 1.0 a couple of weeks ago, so I thought it was time to figure out why, when, and how to use it.
The first thing I realized was that its name, App Startup, implies perhaps a bit broader capability than it actually has. The library is not focused on general startup concerns (at least in its current incarnation); it is specifically aimed at minimizing the impact of initialization that happens automatically because of content providers.
Now maybe you’re like me and never thought about how libraries are initialized…
App Bundles, Material Design Components, new Target API requirements, new fragment and flow docs, and several articles and videos
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
NiA30 in Video and Podcast Form
This Now in Android is also offered in video and podcast form. It’s the same content, but with less reading required. The article version (keep reading!) is still the place to come for links to all of the content that’s covered.
Video
Podcast
Click on the link below, or just subscribe to the podcast in your favorite client app.
MAD Skills: App Bundles & Material Design Components
Testing launch performance can be tricky, but it doesn’t have to be
Shell Command for Testing Startup
I wrote this article to explain more about performance, startup testing, and the reasons behind the pieces I used for testing startup. But if you just want something quick here it is:
- Lock the clocks if possible (see far below)
- Run this on the command-line (while your device is connected):
$ for i in `seq 1 100`
> do
> adb shell am force-stop com.android.samples.mytest
> sleep 1
> adb shell am start-activity -W -n com.android.samples.mytest/.MainActivity | grep "TotalTime" | cut -d ' ' -f 2
> doneThe command above loops 100 times, launching an app, outputting the startup…
Chet Haase
Android and comedy. Not necessarily in that order.
