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The Difference Between iOS and Android App Development Using React Native

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We as a nation are obsessed with mobile apps. Do you realize how much you are dependent on them? In 2017 alone, over 197 billion apps were downloaded. In 2016, 90 billion Android apps and over 25 billion iOS apps were downloaded by the masses. Therefore, getting into app development is an excellent way to earn profits and deliver what customers want. However, the job isn’t easy. There are various decisions you have to take. For instance, do you want to develop an app for Android or iOS users? Or, maybe you want something for both? Do you want an excellent UI as well as UX, developed according to the platform? Or maybe, you want to take the easy way out and make an app that is supported on different types of platforms? If you aren’t willing to develop an app separately for iOS and Android from scratch, React Native is your best option. This framework uses only Javascript. This allows the developed app to be supported by both iOS and Android platforms. This is bound to reduce development time. Importance of React Native The good thing about using React Native is that it allows you to alter the user interface of the app for both iOS and Android app development. Open-source Framework The framework is open-source in nature. It is believed that the structure will become compatible with both Windows and MacOS soon. Moreover, rather than rewriting codes from scratch when developing an Android or iOS version of your app, you can instead reuse the one you made. You can do so by incorporating the React Native’s components in the code of the app you developed or reuse the same code. To do the latter, it is essential that your app is built on Cordova. Quick Development App development isn’t easy. Doing so from scratch and learning how to code Java and Swift can seem like a hassle. With the help of React Native, rather than gaining the technical expertise in two types of script, you are required to know one, i.e., JavaScript. This makes the development process very quick. Focus on the User Interface The major reason for the popularity of React Native is the fact that it delivers a smooth and easy to navigate user-interface in both operating systems in one go. Previously, you had to give preference to one type of platform while the other got the short end of the stick. However, the app developed via React Native is equally smooth in both iOS and Android. How Does App Development in Android and iOS Differ? App development in iOS and Android significantly differ from one another. These differences arise when you develop your app using React Native as well. Here are the primary aspects where the development process differs. Operating System When developing an app, there aren’t any official operating tools available for you to test your app in iOS. There are a few tools available, but since they aren’t delivered by Apple itself, one cannot expect them to be reliable. On the other hand, Android apps can only be checked via Android Studio. This is the only official tool that is provided by Android. So, if you want to test the validity of your developed app and check if it will work on the operating system, the tools are limited in number. While React Native allows you to build applications that work with both operating systems, when it comes to adequately test whether the app developer works on the given system, you will face difficulties if you use a Windows computer. The XCode of iOS only works on macOS. Native Elements The React Native Library has various elements for you to use to develop your app. However, the result the elements produce will differ according to the platform they are used on. For instance, Picker component would lead to a different outcome in an Android emulator and a different one in an iOS simulator. Supporting Styles The styles you add on your app using React Native will also look different in iOS and Android. For example, let’s say you wish to have a shadow style in your app. This style will be visible when you run the application in iOS. However, this won’t be the case in Android since the operating system doesn’t support the given style. Linking Libraries Do you wish to add third-party libraries in your app using React Native? Well, the differences between iOS and Android systems mean that you can’t just use the react-native link called “library name” to get the job done. Instead, you will have to link third-party libraries manually. Now, this won’t be an easy job using React Native. Why? This is because you will need distinct knowledge about the coding of Android and iOS. To manually link libraries on these systems, you would have to use Java and Objective C language. If the library you are using has the required documentation, you might not be required to do anything manually. But, in case it doesn’t, you must know this intrinsic difference between iOS and Android systems to develop your app. Designs While you can use React native to simplify the development of iOS and Android versions of an app, the fact remains that you can’t share the code in its entirety. One key difference that stops this from happening is the differences in design in iOS and Android systems. Think of iOS apps. You might observe that all of them are very minimalistic. While Android too is moving towards material design ideas, it is still more extravagant in its design than iOS. As an app developer, you must keep this in mind to ensure that thetwo versions of the app suit well to the operating system they will run in. Let’s take an example of a given design element to signify the difference in development, i.e., multitask panels. iOS apps feature small windows for the task panel. Android has tabs that can be interchanged. However,

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Top 12 Ways to Reduce Android App Size During App Development Lifecycle

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You’re reading this because… You’re an Android app developer who hates to see phones running out of space. You’re a patron of the 150 MP threshold Google Play Store puts on app download. You’re tired of developing mammoth sized APK files that hardly get installed. Let’s admit it: large size apps are storage-hoggers and downright nuisance. Users cannot do without them, nor can they get rid of them. They live in a constant love-hate relation with these apps – praising their rich graphics and smooth navigability, but cursing their sheer size at the end of the day. And, because human needs are insatiable, they cannot help dreaming about ways to have more apps in their devices without compromising on quality or overtaxing the phone storage. Beyond doubt, mobile devices have come of age with larger storage spaces. It has increased from a mere 16 GB 5 years ago to massive 256 GB. But, along with them, app sizes have grown, too. Android users worldwide would unanimously agree to the fact that the largest chunk of their phone storage belongs to apps, which mercilessly gorge on data, RAM and most importantly, battery life. Although there is cloud support for photos, videos, music, and other files, there is only so much a phone can take before it begins slogging and hanging. Size is a Major Problem in the Realm of App Development Don’t take our word for it. If we go by Google’s statistics, nearly 90% of mobile devices on this planet run on Android. The global user base is capped at 2.7 billion and the total number of apps available on Play Store is 2.8 million. Adding to this, Google says if the size of an app is more than 150 MB (earlier 100 MB), chances are its installation is going to be lowered by 30%. For every 6 MB expansion in size, the install conversion rate could drop by 1%. Android App developers should get all worked up about this matter because 70% users now consider the size of the app before installing it. And it’s no secret that an app that exists without considerable downloads is as good as non-existent. The Question is Why Large Size Apps Exist in the First Place? Modern-day apps have been puffed up because of three primary reasons: Highly growing feature sets Increasing UX expectations Support for a wide range of screen sizes and densities Hardly ever do these apps function efficiently. Beyond affecting the storage capacity and memory of mobile devices, they also increase data consumption. We can only imagine the woeful situation where a user relies on primitive Internet connectivity. Thankfully, Google has a Way Out! Even the tech giant is emphasizing on creating smaller apps and giving out tools for developers to make it happen. Its publishing platform, the Android App Bundle, enables users to install apps without re-downloading vital elements which are already present in other apps on Play Store, thus minimizing size. This is much like not having to buy utensils every time because you want to cook a certain recipe; the ingredients are just enough. Google believes the platform can reduce app size by as much as 35%. This is pretty huge. Shrunken sizes will also mean quicker development time and TTM. Long story short, users will have more apps to look forward to without overwhelming their phone storage. All a developer needs to do is upload the app as an Android App Bundle with all compiled codes and resources, and watch the platform defer APK generation as well as signing to Google Play. This is followed by the app serving model, Dynamic Delivery using the codes and resources to generate APKs optimized in harmony with the varying device configurations and then, serving it to users for download. The need to create multiple APKs and structure them to support different devices is dismissed. In return, users receive device-specific smaller versions of the app that can be downloaded without killing space. But, There’s More to Downsizing Android Apps The Android App Bundle cannot be the only key, can it? There has to be some collective effort from the developer fraternity as well to make sure Android apps do not eat up too much space on mobile devices. But, before we proceed, here’s what you need to know about the APK file structure: An APK is a ZIP archive that contains everything your app looks and works like. It comprises Resources like Images and fonts with compiled code as Dex files. An APK contains directories, which include the following: META-INF/ with CERT.SF and CERT.RSA signature files, and a MANIFEST.MF manifest file. assets/ with all assets retrievable using AssetManager objects. res/ with all resources that are not a part of resources.arsc. lib/ with a complied code for the software layer. Subdirectories: armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86, x86_64, and mips. It contains files, which include the following: AndroidManifest.xml which is always present, no matter what. resources.arsc with all compiled resources and configurations of res/values/ folder. classes.dex with all classes compiled in DEX file format. Top 12 Ways to Reduce Apps Size During the Development Life Cycle Image Optimization Image size can be conveniently reduced without diluting the resolution. For instance, .jpg and .png images can be converted to .webp web image format to downsize apps without compromising the quality. The .webp format offers lossy compression like .jpg and transparency like .png. In short, it has the best of both the worlds. There are a number of tools available for such conversion. Tools such as guetzli and packjpg suit .jpg file compression best while pngcrush, and zopflipng befit .png files. This apart, designers can implement vector graphics to create simple resolution-independent images that don’t crib for space.These are available in Android as VectorDrawable objects and enable a 100-byte file to generate images sharp and screen-sized. It is known that some images can do without static resources. The framework is more than enough to draw such images dynamically at runtime. Yes, using Vector Drawables objects

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Kotlin Programming Language

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In the year 2017, Google marked a new epoch in the swiftly evolving field of Android app development by announcing its support for Kotlin. This one is a statically-typed programming language, which runs on JVM aka Java Virtual Machine. Developed by YouTrack, JetBrains, and numerous other IDE solutions, this open source language has created a buzz worldwide. Recently, JetBrains had claimed that Kotlin can spell impressive results in writing iOS apps as well. It supported Android, iOS, and several other browsers through its web apps. Over the past few years, the overall popularity of Kotlin has reached another level altogether. With its rapidly growing supports for both the prime mobile platforms, Kotlin has earned a great deal of reverence across the globe. It is anticipated that the future of Kotlin will not be confined to Android applications only. The arrival of Kotlin has also given rise to a bunch of queries. Where did it hail from? Should the already existing apps, which are written with the conventional stack, embrace this recently popularized programming language? Wondering whether you should switch to Kotlin leaving the traditional options like Java or Android to be back-burnered? Steering clear of all these queries would be easier once you understand the pros and cons of using Kotlin. But, before we proceed further to unearth the advantages and disadvantages of Kotlin, let’s give you a brief depiction of what Kotlin is. Have a look: Kotlin and Some Important Facts Related to It As mentioned earlier, Kotlin refers to a statically-typed programming language that can generate codes for running on Java virtual machines. Kotlin has obtained its name from the island of Kotlin, which is situated in Russia. The syntax of Kotlin is incompatible with Java that is generally used for building apps for different Android platforms. But, surprisingly it is capable of interoperating with Java codes. In other words, codes written in Kotlin can work seamlessly with Java as it does natively. Kotlin relies on an aggressive inference to decide the kind of expressions and values if these are not depicted properly. Owing to this feature, Kotlin has become more distinctive than Java that often needs repetitive type specifications. Kotlin was invented in the year 2011. Even within this short span of time, Kotlin has stolen the limelight and turned into a reliable programming language for developing Android apps. Thanks to the monumental popularity of Kotlin, some of the world’s leading tech organizations have started counting on it for developing Android apps. Some of the Biggest Pros and Cons of Kotlin Since the moment it came into being, Kotlin has garnered oodles of praises from the millennial mobile app developers. According to some developers, this language is even better than its elder counterpart Java. However, this statement has got a mixed bag of reactions in return. It is not a cakewalk to judge whether or not Kotlin works better than Java. However, we are not looking to strike any comparison between these languages. Rather, we are intended to find out some of the biggest advantages and disadvantages of using Kotlin. The Pros of Using Kotlin It Maximizes the Productivity of Teams Kotlin is a Java based programming language. It can eliminate the cumbersomeness as well as obsolescence of Java. Besides being a clear, compact and efficient language, Kotlin takes pride in owning an intuitive and concise syntax. Resultantly, Kotlin can maximize the overall productivity of an entire team of developers. It entails a very little time to write as well as deploy new codes using Kotlin. It also ensures easier code maintainability at scale. It Coordinates with Existing Java Code The programming language of Kotlin has interoperability in Java. It is consistent with Java and many other related frameworks and tools. This makes it possible for making a switch to Kotlin. In case if your products can’t be written in just Kotlin, both the programming languages could be easily used simultaneously. It Can be Maintained with Ease Kotlin has stellar support for many IDEs that include Android studio and numerous other SDK tools. This helps in maximizing the overall productivity of a developer because it can continuously deal with the toolkits they are already used to. It is a Lot Less Buggy With a clearer and more compact codebase, Kotlin leaves no rooms for making mistakes. It also provides more stable codes in production. The compiler can identify every possible mistake at a compile time span sans any hassle. As a result of this, it turns Kotlin into a safer substitute to Java. It is a Lot More Reliable Unlike many other conventional programming languages, Kotlin is a lot more mature language. Kotlin came into being back in the year 2011. From the moment it was introduced, Kotlin has undergone multiple Beta and Alfa stages prior to releasing its final version. The latest release is reversely compatible with its several other previous language versions. It is Easy to Learn Kotlin is aimed at enhancing the features of Java rather than just rewriting them. All the skills that a mobile app developer has mastered and obtained when working on Java, could be applied to every project related to Kotlin as well. It Combines Functional and Procedural Programming At present, there are a bunch of programming paradigms, which are in the widespread usage. Every programming paradigm owns its share of advantages and disadvantages. So, when there is no dearth of the scenarios where the procedural programming has zero advantage, there could be a number of difficulties where the functional approach can be more effective. In order to spell the finest results, Kotlin combines the best of the functional as well as procedural programming. The Cons of Kotlin It is Still Different from Java Even though Kotlin and Java have a number of similarities to share, they have some prominent differences as well. The mobile app developers cannot make a switch to any other programming language sans learning thoroughly about Kotlin. Slower Compilation Speed In a few cases, Kotlin

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