How to Build an Android App in 12 weeks.

All weekly updates for Bynd Android.

Published in

Frontiers

5 min readOct 18, 2017

Our goal is pretty simple and straight forward: be as communicative and transparent as possible. Especially when building an application with multiple different api endpoints, and thousands of people waiting in line for the release. Down below, you’ll find all weekly updates I’ve personally written in the past for the upcoming launch of Bynd Android.

In case you never heard of it: with Bynd you will view all relevant content from sources such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Medium and 70+ news channels, in one unified feed on your Android device.

Week 1: ✓

the team has created storyboards and specific use cases for the Android version.
we’ve compared the iOS design with the first Android mockups and made some tiny changes.
the most recent apk has been tested with a small group of Alpha testers.

Week 2: ✓

the Alpha version has been tested on various different devices + use cases.
we collected a huge number of bug reports and feedback in general, which has been implemented immidiately.
the Team has discussed and decided to support devices running KitKat, Lollipop, Marshmallow and Nougat.

Week 3: ✓

the basic architecture has been developed.
Bynd will consists of three “Activities”. One for the login, the second one for the options and the last one will be the main app itself.
our CTO Maciej has set up the communication between App <> BackEnd
did we mention, that the team has done some testing?! :)
some bug fixes.

Week 4: ✓

we implemented one Library from Microsoft’s Azure and two from Facebook.
Android’s SDK is now part of Bynd Android.
last but not least, we are now using another Library which will help the app to load pictures more efficiently!

Week 5: ✓

we spend a few days asking, which news channels (CNN, BBC, New York Times etc:) to implement, analysed the data and discussed this within the team.
our Android dev did a few tweaks on the BackEnd, which is powered by Microsoft’s Azure platform.

Week 6: ✓

Flurry Analytics has now been implemented.
FrontEnd Library from Google works fine, too
Facebook Login is built in.

Here is a quick preview:

Week 7: ✓

Twitter signup/login has been built in.
“Following People” is getting displayed.
“Miscellaneous Screen” (top left corner) has been implemented.
we show a few posts with some dummy data!

Week 8: ✓

Push has been implemented.
Google Login works fine now. We need this for YouTube.
The List of “subscriptions” you have, will be displayed in “Accounts”.
There is a clear indicator now, if you enabled/activated a channel.
If you make an API call and minimize the app (when you receive a call, message etc.) the API call will be paused in the background.
A lot of files have been grouped and structured.
Pagination is implemented as well. Meaning, that if you want to load your list of friends, we do that by pulling the first 20, than the next 20 and so on (to avoid making too many API calls).
Debuggt a lot to avoid crashes and deliver you the best possible app experience.
The feed looks like this:

Week 9: ✓

UI Improvements.
Logout has been built in.
Instagram API Pagination is now working, too.
In App Purchase has been implemented.
Debugged the Google Login (if you login with Twitter or Instagram first and vica versa)
Debugged on Kitkat, Lollipop and Marshmallow, as well as on 4,5'’ bis 5,5'’ devices.

Week 10: ✓

80% is done!
All API’s (except for News) have been implemented.
Misc. Screen is now working as well.
Accounts screen has been set up. You can now click on each tab, de-activate and activate each channel: