Android

Demystifying the No-code Development Myths in 2024

No-code development is a boon for software development. It is an exciting approach to software development that empowers people without extensive coding knowledge to build applications. Consider this like a visual playground for building software, rather than writing lines of code.

Even with its impressive capabilities, there are still some misconceptions about its usage. Is it just a fad? Can it handle real-world complexity? Is it secure? Let us begin our journey in bursting the myths of No-code development and reveal its transformative potential.

Myth #1: No-code is just for citizen developers and simple apps.

Gone are the days when no-code was used just to develop basic prototypes and internal tools. In today’s era, No-code development is upgraded to enterprise-level configurations, empowering developers to build sophisticated applications with complex logic and integrations. Leading brands like Uber, Airbnb, and Spotify leverage no-code to optimize internal workflows and enhance user experiences.

Myth #2: No-code apps can’t be secure or reliable.

Security and reliability are must for any software, and no-code platforms prioritize them. They employ industry-standard encryption, secure data storage, and regular vulnerability assessments to ensure app integrity. Additionally, continuous updates and patch deployments keep your applications running smoothly and securely.

Myth #3: No-code locks you in.

There are some platforms which restrict data portability, but many offer strong export options and API integrations. When we opt for open-source platforms while focusing on data ownership, it minimizes vendor lock-in, allowing you to migrate applications seamlessly if needed.

Myth #4: No-code restrains creativity and innovation.

Creativity thrives in freedom, and no-code provides just that. By leveraging the drag-and-drop interface of No-code development, you can focus on your creativity rather than getting stuck in tedious coding. It has a vast library of pre-built components which helps you in designing stunning UIs, implement unique workflows, and personalize experiences.

Myth #5: No-code kills the need for developers.

Consider No-code development as a strong ally, rather than a replacement. Though it empowers non-technical users in software development, developers and their skill set remains crucial for complex logic implementation and platform customization. No-code complements traditional development, enhancing and accelerating the overall development process.

Exploring Advantages Beyond The Myths

As we have cleared the misconceptions, let us look into some of the commendable advantages of No-code development:

• Democratization of software development: Break free from the dependency of complete domain knowledge, No-code empowers everyone to build, innovate, and solve problems through software.
• Faster time to market: No need to wait for months-long development cycles. With No-code development, you can build & launch MVPs initially with no-code, allowing for rapid iteration and market validation.
• Reduced costs and resources: No-code platforms require less technical expertise and infrastructure, making them significantly more cost-effective than traditional development methodologies.
• Increased agility and responsiveness: Adapting and iterating on applications is much easier with No-code.

No-code development is not any “Easy Replacement”, but it’s a process to democratize software development and empower individuals. By breaking free from the barriers of coding myths, we can explore the power of No-code development where anyone can build, innovate, and shape the digital landscape.

For more information, please head over to our Technology page. To develop Android Application, visit our Hire Android Developer page & to develop iOS Application, visit our Hire iOS Developer page. At HK Infosoft, we are destined to provide you with an innovative solution using the latest technology stacks. E-mail us any clock at – hello@hkinfosoft.com or Skype us: “hkinfosoft”.

Content Source:

1. Google

Low-Code Development Takes Center Stage in Application Building

How Low-Code Development is Shaping The Future of Application Building?

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are constantly seeking ways to streamline processes, enhance efficiency, and gain a competitive edge. Traditional software development methodologies are powerful,yet can be time-consuming, expensive, and often requires a team of highly skilled developers. This is where low-code development emerges as a transformative force, democratizing application development and empowering businesses to innovate faster.

Demystifying Low-Code Development

Low-code development, as the name suggests, involves building applications with minimal coding. It utilizes visual tools, drag-and-drop interfaces, and pre-built components to streamline the development process. This approach makes application development accessible to a wider range of users, including those with limited or no coding experience.

Benefits of Low-Code Development

The adoption of low-code development is on the rise due to its numerous benefits, including:

• Accelerated Development: Low-code platforms enable rapid application development, reducing the time-to-market for new software solutions.
• Reduced Costs: By minimizing the need for extensive coding, low-code development significantly lowers development costs.
• Empowered Employees: Low-code tools empower non-technical users to contribute to application development, fostering collaboration and innovation.
• Business Agility: Low-code platforms facilitate faster adaptation to changing business needs, enhancing organizational agility.
• Reduced Shadow IT: Low-code platforms provide a controlled environment for application development, minimizing the risk of shadow IT.

Applications of Low-Code Development

The versatility of low-code platforms extends to a wide range of applications, including:

• Mobile Applications: Low-code platforms can be used to build native and cross-platform mobile apps with ease.
• Web Applications: Low-code tools can efficiently create web applications for internal and external use.
• Business Process Automation: Low-code platforms can automate workflows, streamline processes, and improve operational efficiency.
• Data Management: Low-code tools can manage and integrate data from various sources, providing valuable insights.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Low-code platforms can streamline CRM processes, enhance customer engagement, and improve customer satisfaction.

Trends in Low-Code Development

The low-code development landscape is constantly evolving, with emerging trends that are shaping the future of application development:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Integration: AI-powered low-code platforms are gaining traction, providing intelligent recommendations, automating tasks, and enhancing development efficiency.
• Cloud-Native Development: Low-code platforms are increasingly cloud-native, enabling seamless deployment and scalability of applications.
• Citizen Development: The rise of citizen developers, non-technical users who create applications, is driving the adoption of low-code platforms.
• Integration with Existing Systems: Low-code platforms are becoming more adept at integrating with existing enterprise systems, facilitating seamless adoption.

The Future of Low-Code Development

Low-code development is poised to revolutionize the software development landscape, empowering businesses to innovate faster, enhance efficiency, and gain a competitive edge. As low-code platforms continue to evolve, they will become increasingly sophisticated, accessible, and integrated, further democratizing application development and driving digital transformation across industries.

For more information, please head over to our Technology page. To develop Android Application, visit our Hire Android Developer page & to develop iOS Application, visit our Hire iOS Developer page. At HK Infosoft, we are destined to provide you with an innovative solution using the latest technology stacks. E-mail us any clock at – hello@hkinfosoft.com or Skype us: “hkinfosoft”.

Content Source:

1. Google

Android: Most Popular Mobile Operating System in the World

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google. It is based on the Linux kernel and is designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world, with over three billion active users. The Android source code is open, so anyone can use it to build any kind of device.

How is Android helping?

Android is helping people in many ways. It is making it easier for people to stay connected, learn new things, and be entertained. Android devices are also becoming increasingly affordable and accessible, making them available to more people than ever before.

Here are some specific examples of how Android is helping people:

• Staying connected: Android devices make it easy to stay connected with friends and family through social media, messaging apps, and video calling.
• Learning new things: There are millions of educational apps available on the Google Play Store, covering a wide range of topics. Android devices also make it easy to access online learning resources.
• Being entertained: Android devices offer a wide range of entertainment options, including games, movies, music, and TV shows.
• Improving productivity: Android devices can be used for a variety of productivity tasks, such as checking email, creating documents, and managing presentations.
• Making payments: Android devices can be used to make payments through contactless payment systems such as Google Pay.

Benefits of Android

There are many benefits to using Android devices. Here are just a few:

• Affordability: Android devices are available in a wide range of prices, making them affordable for people of all income levels.
• Customization: Android users can customize their devices to their liking, including changing the home screen layout, installing custom launchers, and using widgets.
• Choice: There are thousands of different Android devices available, from budget-friendly phones to high-end flagships.
• Open Source: Android is an open source operating system, which means that developers are free to create apps and games for it. This has resulted in a huge ecosystem of Android apps and games, many of which are free to download and use.

History of Android

Android was first released in 2008. It was developed by a company called Android Inc., which was acquired by Google in 2005. Android quickly became popular, and it is now the most popular mobile operating system in the world.

Latest version of Android

The latest version of Android is Android 14, which was released on October 4, 2023. Android 14 includes a number of new features and improvements, such as:

• Personalized UI with Material You: Material You is a new design language for Android that allows users to personalize their devices with their favorite colors and themes.
• Improved privacy and security features: Android 14 includes a number of new privacy and security features, such as the ability to choose which apps have access to your location and camera.
• New productivity features: Android 14 includes a number of new productivity features, such as the ability to use your phone as a webcam for your computer.

Upcoming update in Android

The next major update to Android is expected to be released in 2024. This update is rumored to include a number of new features, such as:

• Foldable phone support: Android is expected to include better support for foldable phones in the next update.
• Improved battery life: Google is working on ways to improve battery life for Android devices.
• New AI features: Android is expected to include new AI features in the next update, such as improved machine translation and image recognition.

Conclusion

Android is a powerful and versatile mobile operating system that is helping people in many ways. It is affordable, customizable, and offers a wide range of features and apps. Android is also the most popular mobile operating system in the world, so there is a large community of developers and users who can provide support and assistance.

For more information and to develop Android Mobile Apps, Hire Android Developer from us as we give you a high-quality product by utilizing all the latest tools and advanced technology. E-mail us any clock at – hello@hkinfosoft.com or Skype us: “hkinfosoft”.

To develop Android Mobile Apps, please visit our technology page.

Content Source:

• android.com

What’s new in Android 13

In just few weeks there will be an official release of Android 13! As at the end of finishing touches on the next version of Android, today Android provided Beta 4, a final update for your testing and development. Now is the time to make sure your apps are ready!

There’s a lot to explore in Android 13, from privacy features like the new notification permission and photo picker, to productivity features like themed app icons and per-app language support, as well as modern standards like HDR video, Bluetooth LE Audio, and MIDI 2.0 over USB. Android has also extended the updates that were made in 12L, giving you better tools to take advantage of tablet and large screen devices.

Watch for more information on the official Android 13 release coming soon!

What’s in Beta 4?

This update includes a release candidate build of Android 13 for Pixel devices and the Android Emulator. It reached Platform Stability at Beta 3, so all app-facing surfaces are final, including SDK and NDK APIs, app-facing system behaviors, and restrictions on non-SDK interfaces. With these and the latest fixes and optimizations, Beta 4 gives you everything you need to complete your testing.

Pic courtesy: android-developers.googleblog.com

Get your apps ready!

With the official Android 13 release just ahead, they are asking all app and game developers to complete their final compatibility testing and publish your compatibility updates ahead of the final release. For SDK, library, tools, and game engine developers, it’s important to release your compatible updates as soon as possible — your downstream app and game developers may be blocked until they receive your updates.

To test your app for compatibility, just install it on a device running Android 13 Beta 4 and work through the app flows, looking for any functional or UI issues. Review the Android 13 behavior changes for all apps to focus on areas where your app could be affected. Here are some of the top changes to test:

• Runtime permission for notifications – Android 13 introduces a new runtime permission for sending notifications from an app. Make sure you understand how the new permission works, and plan on targeting Android 13 (API 33) as soon as possible.
• Clipboard preview – Make sure your app hides sensitive data in Android 13’s new clipboard preview, such as passwords or credit card information.
• JobScheduler prefetch – JobScheduler now tries to anticipate the next time your app will be launched and will run any associated prefetch jobs ahead of that time. If you use prefetch jobs, test that they are working as expected.

Remember to test the libraries and SDKs in your app for compatibility. If you find any SDK issues, try updating to the latest version of the SDK or reaching out to the developer for help.

Once you’ve published the compatible version of your current app, you can start the process to update your app’s targetSdkVersion. Review the behavior changes that apply when your app targets Android 13 and use the compatibility framework to help detect issues quickly.

Tablets and large-screens support

Android 13 builds on the tablet optimizations introduced in 12L, so as part of your testing, make sure your apps look their best on tablets and other large-screen devices. You can test large-screen features by setting up an Android emulator in Android Studio, or you can use a large-screen device from our Android 13 Beta partners. Here are some areas to watch for:

• Taskbar interaction – Check how your app responds when viewed with the new taskbar on large screens. Make sure your app’s UI isn’t cut off or blocked by the taskbar.
• Multi-window mode – Multi-window mode is now enabled by default for all apps, regardless of app configuration, so make sure the app handles split-screen appropriately. You can test by dragging and dropping your app into split-screen mode and adjusting the window size.
• Improved compatibility experience – if your app isn’t optimized for tablets yet, such as using a fixed orientation or not being resizable, check how your app responds to compatibility mode adjustments such as letterboxing.
• Media projection – If your app uses media projection, check how your app responds while playing back, streaming, or casting media on large screens. Be sure to account for device posture changes on foldable devices as well.
• Camera preview – For camera apps, check how your camera preview UI responds on large screens when your app is constrained to a portion of the screen in multi-window or split-screen mode. Also check how your app responds when a foldable device’s posture changes.

Get started with Android 13

This Beta 4 release has everything you need to test your app and try the Android 13 features. Just enroll your Pixel device to get the update over the air. To get started, set up the Android 13 SDK.

You can also test your app with Android 13 Beta on devices from several of our partners. Visit android.com/beta to see the full list of partners, with links to their sites for details on their supported devices and Beta builds, starting with Beta 1. Each partner will handle their own enrollments and support, and provide the Beta updates to you directly. For even broader testing, you can try Beta 4 on Android GSI images, and if you don’t have a device, you can test on the Android Emulator. For complete details on Android 13, visit the Android 13 developer site.

What’s next?

Watch for information on the official Android 13 launch coming in the weeks ahead! Looking forward to seeing more apps on Android 13!

For more information and to develop Android Mobile Apps, Hire Android Developer from us as we give you a high-quality product by utilizing all the latest tools and advanced technology. E-mail us any clock at – hello@hkinfosoft.com or Skype us: “hkinfosoft”.

To develop Android Mobile Apps, please visit our technology page.

Content Source:

• android-developers.googleblog.com

How to improve app startup using I/O prefetching

In Android 11, it’s introduced IORap, a new feature which greatly improves application startup times. We have observed that apps start more than 5% faster (cold startup) on average across a variety of devices. Some hero cases show 20%+ faster startup times. Users get this additional performance without any developer app changes!

IORap prefetching for Android apps

IORap reduces app startup times by predicting which I/O will be required and doing it ahead of time. Many app startups have a lot of time that the IO request queue isn’t being saturated because of blocking I/O. As a result, we aren’t maximizing IO latency. After prefetching the data and compacting the I/O, the app can access this data nearly instantly from the pagecache , significantly reducing app startup latency.

Pic courtesy: medium.com

When we evaluated some popular top apps from the Play Store, 80%+ spent 10%+ time in blocking I/O during launch time. while ~50% of the apps even spent 20%+ time. A majority of apps we looked at could benefit from IORap.

Pic courtesy: medium.com

Pic courtesy: medium.com

IORap works as an independent service on the device. It interacts with package manager, activity manager, perfetto service, etc via IPC. The overall architecture of IORap is shown in the following figure:

Pic courtesy: medium.com

Step 1: Collecting perfetto traces

IORap uses a profiling-based strategy to determine the I/O to be prefetched. The knowledge comes from perfetto trace, which records the kernel pagecache page removals/additions (from ftrace). In the first several cold-runs of an app, the perfetto tracing is on to get the pagecache missing events. Our study shows the overhead of perfetto tracing on startup time is neglectable.

Step 2: Generating prefetch list

Based on the perfetto traces obtained from the prior step, IORap generates a prefetch list during the idle time of the device. Basically, the prefetch list contains the information of the file (name, offset, length) that was accessed by an app when it’s launched. IORap analyzes the mm_pagemap events from the perfetto trace and converts its result (inode, offset, length) to (name, offset, length) by reversing inode to filename. Data is then stored in the prefetch list, which is a protobuf file.

Pic courtesy: medium.com

Step 3: I/O prefetching

After the prefetch list is generated, IORap can prefetch the corresponding data for the following runs of the app. The perfetto tracing is not needed any more. The user and developer don’t need to do anything. The prefetching is performed when the user taps on the icon or indirectly via another app requesting it via Intent. Enjoy the speedup!

Step 4: Obsoleting the prefetch list

The prefetch list doesn’t live forever. Several events may cause the prefetch list to become obsolete. When an app is updated, the prefetch list is deprecated because the app may change and the previous data may be inaccurate. Also, the dexopt service can optimize the app after installation. Once the app is optimized, the layout may differ making the prefetch list obsolete. The obsolete prefetch list will be removed and a new round will start with perfetto trace collections.

Improvements & Observation

Collating results from several experiments in our lab we determined that IORap benefits cover the spectrum from low end to high end devices. On average, IORap could provide up to ~26% speedup. It’s extremely helpful for apps that have heavy I/O during startup. For example, Spotify shows double digit improvement for both low-end devices (Go and Pixel 3A) and high end-devices (Pixel 3 or 4).

Pic courtesy: medium.com

One interesting observation during the experiment is that the performance of IORap is largely impacted by the amount of prefetched data. An accurate trace duration is super important for IORap. A shorter trace duration causes less data than necessary to be prefetched and less performance gain. On the other hand, a longer one leads to more data than necessary being prefetched, which may result in slower startup in worst case scenarios. IORap uses the timestamp of when an app reports the ReportFullyDrawn event to estimate trace duration. For apps not reporting this event, the display time is used. So invoking the reportFullyDrawn callback at the right time can improve the performance of IORap.

Future Development

We’re excited about the improvement that IORap has shown, and we plan to explore this concept more in the future in the following two directions. Firstly, prefetching more often. It would be great if prefetching could be done during profiling. Then we could eliminate some of the performance gap before generating the prefetching list by providing a prebuilt prefetching list. Secondly, IORap could predict that an app will start and begin prefetching earlier, further speeding up startup time.

For more information and to develop Android Mobile Apps, Hire Android Developer from us as we give you a high-quality product by utilizing all the latest tools and advanced technology. E-mail us any clock at – hello@hkinfosoft.com or Skype us: “hkinfosoft”. To develop Android Mobile Apps, please visit our technology page.

Content Source:

1. medium.com