Developing completely native Android apps can make changes to UI difficult. This presentation talks about the hybrid approach to combine native tools, HTML5, Javascript and CSS to build good looking apps and demonstrate an approach to use custom JS bridge to reduce the apk file size with better performance.

1. Android Development :
Approach For Agile Teams
Anay Kamat
Consultant/Co-Founder
PresentSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
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2. Android
• A great mobile platform
• Easy to learn SDK
• Lot of apps
• But…
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3. How many iOS based devices do you know?
Now count the number of Android devices..
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4. And then there are client
expectations!
• Android as a silver bullet
• Mobiles devices have smaller screens, thus
app development should be simple
• Static & Dynamic apps.. WHAT??
• UI has to be fancy or should match the theme
of their web app.
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5. Development Anti-Patterns
• Most consider Android to be something like
iOS clone
– Often forget the existence of concepts like
“Intent”
• Most of the code is for fancy UI including
layouts and images for different screens and
orientations
• XML for purpose other than data transfer or
data markup
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6. Android is not iOS clone
• Android supports collaboration between apps
• Android port of iOS app should be same as the
original iOS app… WHY??
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7. Layout design with XML is good
But..
– XML was not created for that purpose
– Too verbose
– Does not directly interact with logical behavior
• Compare “rake” with “ant”
– Difficult to refactor
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8. Fancy UI
• Consider Windows and OSX applications
– They use standard UI libraries provided by the OS
– Feature rich
– Makes it easier to use new application due to
familiar UI concepts
• Fancy UI for mobile app
– Requires more development efforts
– Adds learning curve for the user
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10. All this adds to development
complexity
• Difficult to be Agile while developing
completely native application
• Alternative: Hybrid Approach
– Native code (Java): To power business logic and
backend services
– HTML &Javascript: For UI
– This makes refactoring easy for both UI and
backend.
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11. Java
• Tried and trusted
• Object oriented
• Powers lot of enterprise applications
• But makes it difficult to write event based
code
– For e.g GUI Applications
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12. Javascript
• Has some OO features
• Great functional language
• Good for developing event based UI apps
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13. HTML & CSS
• Already in widespread use for building fancy
web UIs
• HTML5 takes it even further
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14. But what about performance?
• Works great unless you are building games
involving heavy graphics
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15. Example
• Lets take a look at a sample hybrid application
developed using Forge (Trigger.io)
– https://github.com/trigger-corp/forge-template-
list-and-detail
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20. Observation
• Can help to quickly build hybrid apps with
Fancy UI
• But the file size of final APK is 2.9 MB
• What if we don’t make use of frameworks like
Forge/PhoneGap?
– Use the same HTML/CSS and JS
– Write your own JS bridge
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25. Observation
• Took around 4 hours to develop underlying
native bridge
• APK file size : 93 KB (WOW)
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26. Final approach
• Develop your great application using tools like
Forge/PhoneGap
– This ensures quick turnaround
– Existing talent and agile practices could be used
• Optimize it further (if required) using custom
native bridge
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27. What’s next?
• Continuous integration
• Automated function tests
Copyright © 2007-2012 PresentSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., All Rights Reserved.

28. Thank You
About me
– Consultant/Co-Founder at PresentSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
– Creator of Programming Language for students
• https://github.com/kamatanay/MayaLanguage
– Twitter: @kamatanay
– Email:anay@presentsoft.co.in
– Company Home Page: http://www.prsentsoft.co.in
– Personal Home Page: http://www.anaykamat.com
Copyright © 2007-2012 PresentSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., All Rights Reserved.