According to Statista, 2.6 million mobile applications were available on Google Play Store in December 2021. The Android mobile devices are gaining popularity with time, and with the help of integrated development environments (IDEs), it is easier to develop sophisticated apps. Amidst the pandemic, mobile apps establish relationships with customers and deliver products. It has increased brand awareness with top features like push notification and geo-location to retain customers and attract new ones. However, several applications are available in the market; the competition is also increasing, requiring high-end performance. One needs to know the top Android app development tools to achieve it.
Android Studio
Android Studio is Google’s official IDE platform that brings tools to develop applications for all Android devices. It presents a visual layout editor, which runs ConstraintLayout, where developers can build compound layouts and preview them on any screen size on different devices.
The following are some of its features.
Navigation Editor Android Gradle plugin updates Delete unused Android Studio directories Android App Bundles now supports Instant App IntelliJ IDEA 2018.2.2 Changes Network Profiler: Formatted Text Kotlin 1.3.11 Update Clang-Tidy Support for C++ New Project Wizard Look Lazy task configuration Single-variant project sync Single-variant project sync CPU Profiler: Frame Rendering Data
As the official IDE for all Android applications, Android Studio constantly seems to top the chosen tools for developers. It is the fastest tool for building apps that allows developers to create complex layouts, reduce application size, fast emulators, provide real-time statistics, custom build, etc.
Microsoft .Net Xamarin
Xamarin is the open-source, cross-platform, and accessible platform used to build applications using C# and .NET. Using the platform, developers can build native Android, Windows, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and iOS apps with native API access integrated. NET.
.NET developer platform with Xamarin can use libraries and tools integrated with native APIs, backend services, components, etc. It also contains video courses, tutorials, and documentation about productivity tools and pre-packaged libraries. One can develop a native user interface and design uniform UI leveraging platform-specific hardware acceleration. The “write once, run anywhere” makes it easy to create as 75% of the code is suitable for different platforms.
Firebase
Firebase can help scale-up and accelerate app development without managing infrastructure. It is easy to develop applications for your backend without managing servers, scale up to support users, and solve common application issues.
It includes the features like:
App distribution Test lab Performance monitoring Remote config Google Analytics
Developers can build applications and improve quality with less effort and time consumption. It is easier to simplify training, testing, troubleshooting, monitoring, and rolling out features. The platform helps fix, prioritize, pinpoint stability and performance issues.
Genymotion
Virtual devices can help in empowering Android teams and developing scalable applications. Genymotion is an Android Emulator that allows easy testing of cross-platform applications. It offers compatibility for testing frameworks on ADB such as Espresso, Appium, and Robotic. The tool also comes with Continuous Integration solutions such as Terraform, Bitrise, CircleCI, etc. It allows developers to access unlimited virtual devices for parallel testing and test sharding. The latest version supports various platforms and screen sizes along with Alibaba, Azure, Google, and AWS. The tool offers best-in-class reliability and security for the businesses, control infrastructure with zero maintenance requirements, dedicated GPUs for selected devices, and infinite scalability with the cloud.
It comes with features like:
Automate and save time for sharding Testing devices and customizing resolution or screen size Simulating actions and user context for real-life scenarios, situations, SMS, location, network, calls, and baseband.
Android virtual devices are easy to integrate, have interactive access to applications, dedicated GPUs for enhanced performance, using APIs & SDKs. The local virtual devices simulate imaginable scenarios for hardware sensors such as multitouch, network, GPS, etc., emulating 3000+ virtual Android device configurations.
BuildFire
BuildFire is the most powerful Android and iOS without being pocket-heavy. It is time-saving with no need to code as it comes with an intuitive and straightforward app builder. The developer SDK is used to build custom functionalities and tailor apps.
Several applications are covered in BuildFire, including business workflow apps, fully custom mobile apps, religious organizations apps, employee communication apps, eCommerce apps, content creator apps, fitness apps, event apps, and education apps. The developer can choose the template that fits their requirement, name the project, start building using drag-and-drop editor, and launch the application in the market. It offers enterprise low-code development and custom features combining the DIY simplicity to enhance app quality. The developers can include robust functionalities in the application, making it easy to ready the prototype.
Gradle
Gradle build tool is popular among startups and big enterprises to deliver, automate, and build better and faster software. The developer can start coding in Python, C++, or other programming languages to develop the software using rich API, integrations, and plugging for integration, modeling, and systematizing.
The development can scale-out development while taking care of caching, compile, blazing-fast builds, and top-notch performance. Developers can install Gradle and get started with development. It also includes free training and guides for beginners to kickstart their coding careers.
Embarcadero RAD Studio
RAD Studio allows developers to build a cross-platform application using one codebase. The platform supports 4k+ and high-DPI screens provisioning for Android and Windows 11. The significant features of this tool include:
Remote desktop support for IDE and VCL Easy team collaboration Single codebase allowing write once and compile everywhere IDE supports high-DPI and 4K+ monitor Modernizing VCL apps Improved FMX Higg-DPI supports with sharper and cleaner fonts macOS 64bit ARM compiler Up-to-date WinRT APIs, user interface controls High-speed direct access with PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, SQLite, InterBase, Advantage DB, etc. Develop FireMonkey GUI and server application RAD Server to reduce complexities for deploying and building multi-tier application
The tool is used to design, develop, debug, deploy, collaborate, maintain code quality, and extend the RAD Studio IDE with several components.
LeakCanary
LeakCanary is an excellent open-source tool developed by Square, which carries out the time-consuming and challenging job of detecting memory leaks. Once set up, it will immediately give you notifications whenever memory leaks occur in your app, with a close stack trace to support you fix the problem.
LeakCanary is created to be as easy to use as possible. Most applications should hardly take a few additional lines in the app’s form .gradle file and one other line of code in your Application class. It is sufficient to enable certain tracking for memory leaks in projects. For complete coverage, the RefWatcher object can present objects that should be garbage collected .app’s
Conclusion
With the appropriate amount of tools and resources, Android development has grown more exciting and more accessible. Android developers are prospering even faster than ever before. There are enormous opportunities for you out there. All you require is a great idea to kick start your plan, and your app would be the next one to take itself a place on Google Play. You may also look at how to build a mobile app without coding.
