5 things I love about Android
It wouldn’t be fair to publish an article on the things you hate, without balancing it out with the things you love.
I am sat here thinking about my first Android App as it propagates it’s way around the internet and onto users devices, with a mixture of relief that it’s finally launched, and anxiety at the almost inevitable crash reports and ANRs.
As a follow up to my 5 things I hate about Android post, here are 5 things I love about Android:
App Signing
What a refreshing change of pace this was. Whilst Apple force me to jump through hoops with developer accounts, provisioning profiles and generated certificates, Android used a very simple Keystore and public/private key signing to identify that I am who I say I am. A much quicker and transparent process.
Beta Testing
The Beta testing tools available through the Android Developer console are excellent. With a quick setup of a Google+ community to invite the testers, an uploaded APK into the right section of the console, and the users were receiving OTA (over-the-air) updates from within the Google Play Store. Simples.
Layouts
Defining my layouts in raw XML seemed a little odd when I first started (don’t get me started on GUIs in Android IDEs), and I missed Interface Builder terribly. But once I got used to them, I found the process to be incredibly powerful and simple. And theming brought a whole new dimension of customisation to the table that I probably wouldn’t have dared to touch in iOS.
SyncAdapter / Periodic Sync
Allowing the registration of isolated code blocks to run periodically, in a battery/network efficient way, was a highlight of Android for me. Keeping my app up-to-date in the background, regardless of whether the app is open or not means that my users are always returning to fresh data without compromising their network or battery usage.
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