The Google Play Store has almost three million apps for download this year. In the past couple of years, the mobile apps development trend has accelerated as more and more people have realized that apps are great for connecting with customers. Android, powering thousands of millions of mobile devices in over 190 countries worldwide, is the biggest installed base of any platform, and growing very fast.
Custom Android app development provides a brand a world-class platform for building apps and games for users everywhere, and an open marketplace as well to instantly distribute them. The openness of the operating system made it a favorite among developers and consumers alike, propelling robust growth in app consumption. Billions of apps and games are being downloaded from the Google Play Store every month.
For an Android mobile app development company, the most straightforward way to develop a mobile app is to download the Android Studio. It’s an IDE, or an Integrated Development Platform with all the necessary packages bundled under the Android SDK to help build an app. Keep in mind however that Android Studio is only the environment supporting mobile application development.
A developer should have the programming knowledge to write the codes necessary for app development. The official language for developing Android apps is Java, which is most extensively supported by Google. Java is used for designing the layouts of any Android application.
Ideally, you must have knowledge of Java, as well as XML to build an app using the Android Studio. There are also several SDKs such as the Android Native Development Kit, in combination with Android Studio for those who are more comfortable with C++, C#, or even BASIC.
The Best Android App Development Frameworks for You
Check out below the best development frameworks and tools for you to build the best Android app.
1. Cordova
A mobile app is a natural web apps extension. With this taken into consideration, the people behind Apache developed an open-source, free mobile development framework, which utilizes HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Named as Cordova, the app development framework enables developers to build multi-platform mobile apps with a single code base.
Moreover, native device APIs could also be accessed by Cordova, which makes it hard to determine if an app was developed with native languages, or otherwise. While it’s designed primarily to develop online applications, Cordova also offers support for offline scenarios. This makes it excellent for the development of desktops too.
2. Xamarin
Among the best frameworks used by an Android mobile app development company, which is used also by over 1.5 million users all over the world. For C# fans wanting to develop Android applications with no need to dive into Java, Java is considered heaven-sent. It gives a complete C# codebase set to developers for the development of native apps, not for Android alone, but also for other mobile operating systems.
Xamarin for Visual Studio moreover is used extensively by application developers for building naïve apps with the code base of .NET.
3. Kotlin Language
A couple of years back, Kotlin was introduced as the second official language of Android due to the steep learning curve of Java. It’s entry barrier is easier, when it comes to coding skills than Java. As a new language, the community support is less, but is growing at a rapid rate.
It’s being interoperable is the critical point in favor of Kotlin. Since it uses the JVM, or the Java Virtual Machine, Kotlin codes are run as Java code seamlessly. This makes it popular even for the die-hard fans of Java.
However, even if it’s better than Java when it comes to less effort and time to learn it, learning a new programming language is no laughing matter. In order for enthusiasts to build mobile apps even if they do not have much knowledge of Java, there are numerous frameworks for faster app development.
4. React Native
An open-source version of the JavaScript framework of Facebook for developing native mobile applications. Also, it’s been used for cross-platform Android app development as well.
Since the basic building blocks of React Native are similar to those of native applications, one could not determine between applications created using React Native and Java. Manually, you could optimize the React Native app through adding codes that are written in other languages, such as Swift, Objective C, or Java.
5. Ionic
A framework that’s open-source and free, Ionic is under the MIT License. This openly indicates that it would be free all the time. The website states that you could create “progressive web and native mobile apps” with the framework.
The frameworks, thoroughly cross-platform, lets you easily create Android mobile apps and when required, transfer them to other platforms. The one concern is that both new and experienced programmers are faced with inferior documentation. Ionic however proves to be the exception, by creating real-life examples to documentation.
6. TheAppBuilder Framework
Boasting of helping clients create wonderful looking apps even without design knowledge, the app building framework is another popular choice. Thus, if you’re visually-challenged who could not distinguish or unable to decide where every app element should go for better designing, then this is your framework of choice.
The apps created with the framework are highly interactive, and almost instantly synced with the devices that a user is logged on into. The available in-depth analytics to the app creators let them make strategic decisions such as features retention, which are loved by users, while those that slow down the app are discarded.
7. Adobe PhoneGap
The team behind Cordova by Apache have built another platform for the development of mobile apps, which is the PhoneGap. Expert developers could shift their skills to mobile application development faster with the framework. It’s simply a Cordova distribution with a lot more plugins and tools thrown in.
With an intuitive desktop app, PhoneGap could be used to build cross-platform apps with a single code base. Its usage ease and popularity ensured a support community that continuously grew and vice versa.
8. Unity
A game engine by Microsoft, which is comprehensively used by programmers to build both 2D and 3D games. It could be furthermore utilized for other cross-platform development. Along with C#, it’s perfect for starting with developing a mobile app, since it has an IDE that’s the same with Android Studio.
It could also be used for creating two-dimensional, three-dimensional, augmented reality, and virtual games, and other experiences and simulations as well. Industries outside video gaming has adopted it, such as for example in engineering, architecture, automotive, film, and construction.
9. Titanium
A mobile app development framework that’s open-source, and has a mobile-first approach at its core. It lets users build visually appealing and clean applications, which are native in looks, in the feel, and in functioning as well. The framework has an API Builder with Hyperloop, which is free for users.
Titanium’s main objective is to offer a cross-platform, high-level JavaScript runtime, and mobile development API. It shares similarities with PHP, MacRuby/Hot Cocoa, or Node.js, instead of Corona, PhoneGap, or Rhomobile.
Conclusion
Whatever tools and frameworks you use for developing apps for Android app development, the first thing that you should do is to make a layout of your app with details, such as features, sections, and design elements. This would lower the overall time of developing apps for Android, whatever the scale may be.
The next step would be to choose a framework wherein your existing programming skills would be maximized. All the frameworks for Android application development above are free, and with a thriving community support that you could use if you get stuck.
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