My journey to an Android Developer

Hello folks! I wish this 2018 is going good for all (those who read this 😝). Well, today I just want to share my personal journey to become an Android Developer. So let’s start…

It was 2014, I was in my 5th semester and we got Android as an academic syllabus. My teacher told about what android is and what it’s meant for. At that time I just know it’s a mobile operating system, we can do calculations and play games in mobile just like PC through Android (I’m such a dumb in 2014 😐). Later during my 7th semester we need to do a group academic project based on any useful scenario.

We started for searching ideas and come up with some tourism site using PHP (because I was fascinated about Web development). We started designing from scratch and developed around 20% of UI. Later my Head of the Department told to try something different which is not interacted with only software.

That line leads to search more for IoT devices. After some days of search again came up with key-chain finder which can be interfaced with Android, Live Friend tracker, Image authentication (IEEE project), Mobile marketing, voice changer during phone call, automatic call forwarding (specified number). But none of these worked and lastly we compromised with Mobile anti-theft and tracker.

So, started by finding the requirements by learning Android (some bit crazy but seriously I don’t know Android programming). I just know java and a little bit of Photoshop. Found free tutorials on web and YouTube, learnt some basic things like creating and some button click events.

Later I have one idea which leads to change my career and interests completely. I have searched the mobile anti theft android and found so many libraries and open source projects. I have selected one which can operate through SMS controls — Source. Then, I dig into this project and changed the UI, added some custom features and finally completed my project.

After completing my graduation, I’m not ready to find the job because I’m in a dilemma that whether I should go for M.S or get a job in India. For deciding this complex question it took 6 months of time. Meanwhile I have worked as a Freelancer with one US Client. He has given some web projects based on PHP, mobile applications based on Android, and some are interfacing both. This could yield money but not the prior experience what I need at that time.

During I worked as Freelancer, I have learnt so many things in Android and Web development. I came to know that what actually the software development is, what are the basic test cases, how to develop an entire application in the hands of a single developer, time management. My clients are pushing me to get the work done faster, so it took around one week to complete an entire application into use. During this freelancer journey I faced many major issues which can never got clear in the development. For example, I have worked with an Android app locker, it is really a challenging task to retrieve the current running foreground activities of applications in the phone. We can easily get the own application’s activities but hard to get which application is running on foreground— Later I found with some typical scenario where in android we can track the list of current active screens in two ways.

Before Lollipop

We can track the current foreground activity by -

ActivityManager am = (ActivityManager)context.getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
ComponentName cn = am.getRunningTasks(1).get(0).topActivity;

After Lollipop

We need to create one AccessibilityService in order to retrieve the window content. Through the service, we can track which activity is on foreground and open our app locker screen with some passcode. — Source

I have faced some situations in development, which I have turned into a passionate developer. That passion has driven me to become a Full Stack developer. I know how to build a complete responsive Web application and Android application. Now, I’m currently working as an Android Developer in Bangalore, India. I was currently learning on new concepts like Android Architecture Components and the official Android language — Kotlin. I believe in learning because every developer need to learn eternally to adapt new technologies with the passion. Soon I will explore the iOS and react-native…

I never think one day I will become an Android Developer and develop apps with ease of grace. My aim is to become a Full Stack Developer but things changed in life to achieve much, and the journey continues…

This is my first Medium post, a big thanks for reading and happy coding..!!