Android app development is easier with the right tools. In this blog, we highlight top IDEs, libraries, and debugging tools that can enhance your workflow, help you create efficient apps, and ensure smooth testing. These tools are built to save time and optimize the entire development process.
Updated 12 November 2024
VP - Backend Technology at Appventurez
Indeed, Android is the most popular operating system in the world. With a market share of a whopping 71.65% of the total operating systems sold globally, Android stands tall leading the mobile phone market. Bagging the second spot comes Android’s closest rival iOS with a mere 27.62% market share.
Android is, therefore, the most loved OS in the world. As per reports, currently, there are over 3 billion active Android devices and this makes Android the first preference of App developers and Android App Development Tools to provide their services.
App development is a growing business globally as proven by the above-mentioned statistics. Therefore, android app developers and Android app development tools are in great demand. Not only this market is huge but Android’s market is always on the top. This opens more space for developers to provide their services.
The app development process is complex, and achieving perfection in the app requires significant time, money, and effort. Therefore, to assist Android app developers, many Android app development tools exist which in itself is a huge market. These tools help developers save time by doing certain complex tasks in less time and with better efficiency.
There are several tools such as IDEs, Libraries, and Debugging tools that help developers develop an application quickly and without any hassle. These tools save time and resources that can be used somewhere more productive. Therefore, in this blog, we shall discuss some of the best Tools used for Android App Development. Let’s begin with a developer’s lifeline, Integrated Development Software.
IDE is an extended editor that enables a person to build up an application with the help of code creation. Standard elements of an IDE are a debugger and a compiler that facilitate the creation of applications. They provide all the development requirements in one interface.
In its initial stages, IDEs were simple and operated mainly through terminals but the new gen IDEs perfectly suit the user’s requirements. Today a lot of IDEs make use of technologies such as machine learning to suggest lines and code snippets on the basis of the code that is being written which enhances the performance and accuracy of the coder.
Although there are many IDEs that developers use to develop great applications, let’s discuss some of the best IDEs for Android app development.
IntelliJ IDEA is developed in Java and has one of the most convenient interfaces, adapted for fast work. It gives automated code recommendation features integrated version control and other smart code completion with support for languages like Java. Practicality, The IDE is truly flexible, needs no outside plugins, and is compatible with numerous developer tools.
However, it is likely to run slow for lower-end devices such as some of the Android tablets on the market.
As a product of technology giant Microsoft, Visual Studio is designed for website, web application, and smartphone application development. It is very flexible to use, provides IntelliSense on C++ coding, and supports Windows as well as Mac OS applications.
A full-text search capability is integrated into Visual Studio as well as a Team Foundation Server that can roll back to prior versions. Of course, it has more features and is more functional than its competitors, but it is bulky and demands a lot of time to load.
Eclipse is an open IDE for Android that was developed by the Eclipse Foundation, which combines basic integrated development environment components with the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) that has the possibility of completing further changes based on individual user preferences in the form of plugins. It currently supports such languages as Python, Java, and C++; and comes with such notable tools as a debugger, a profiler as well and a static code analyzer.
Eclipse is for Windows, Linux/Ubuntu, and macOS operating systems, moreover, it is free software.
This software is produced by another company called JetBrains and it is a Python IDE. The application outperforms all its counterparts in features such as intelligent coding suggestions, immediate code error identification, and the availability of solutions to enhance code quality.
As for implementation, PyCharm also supports the integration with frameworks like Django, and Flask also supports scientific tools such as Numpy and Matplotlib.
It is an open-source application and you can use it on Windows, MAC, Linux, etc without any cost.
Atom is an open-source code editor that specializes in web development and was developed by GitHub. Developed with an interface and syntax highlighting color scheme, Atom has the capability of adding plugins to the editor.
It is free and works on all platforms: Windows, Linux, and macOS the disadvantage is the rather long time the application takes to start.
All these IDEs for Android app development come with distinct aspects that provide for their functionality to satisfy the different levels; the newbies to the professionals; to increase efficiency while programming.
The development of Android Apps comprises several tools and libraries that assist developers in creating stable, effective, and expansive usable applications. Android SDK shipped with lots of features; however, third-party libraries are used in most cases to work faster, maintain high quality, and provide more and more fantastic user experiences.
Therefore, let’s now discuss some of the most popular Libraries for Android app development.
When it comes to making network requests (for instance getting data from REST APIs), parsing JSON, or working with other web services, Retrofit is a great library to use. Retrofit is an HTTP request and response handling system that makes sending HTTP requests faster and easier; the tool was developed by Square.
Retrofit hides complex manipulations with responses or APIs, networking details, and potential parses from developers while requiring only a few lines of code to complete a networking job. It also turns out to be very helpful when making complicated API calls in Android apps.
Images are often included in many mobile applications and Glide is an image library and caching service. Regardless of whether the picture is located on a definite URL or in a local resource, Glide guarantees its optimal loading and non-occupation of much more memory after the operation.
It cuts the amount of work done in picking image loading to the barest minimum and makes for a system that is fast, reactive, and economical with memory in your app. Indeed it is even more popular for an app that is majorly content with media sharing.
Room is an architecture component for Android which provides an abstraction layer over SQLite. It provides a structurally cleaner and more readable way of manipulating a local database directly using Java/Kotlin objects, reducing the whole database handling process to something much more elegant and less prone to errors.
If your app needs offline capabilities and uses SQLite to store data locally (for instance for database queries), Room takes the burden of a lot of boilerplate code away for easier interaction with the database and also makes data operations safer as well as faster. It is the default way for local data storage in Android applications.
The use of too many tools in Android app development is complicated and sometimes developers make mistakes if the size of the app is large. Dagger 2 is Google’s amazing DI library to assist in placing object creation and injection. It eliminates redundancy and optimizes script flexibility and stability.
Dagger 2 is used in large-scale Android applications where there are many dependencies, to make dependency providing and injection much easier and clean the code. This is helpful on teams or larger projects where the codebase scale is significant.
Architecture Components of Android include LiveData and ViewModel which assist in handling UI-related data in a lifecycle-conscious way. LiveData updates the components of the UI when data changes and ViewModel keeps data related to your app’s UI safe during configuration changes such as screen orientations.
LiveData and ViewModel bring a lot of benefits to your app, including improving its reliability due to proper handling of configuration changes and an updated dataset. These components also enhance the design of general architecture since they follow the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) pattern, which makes your codebase easier to manage.
Android debugging is useful within the software development life cycle so long as it helps the programmer deal with coding problems caused during the app development process. These tools assist in performing analysis of the code, control the app execution flow, and identify issues to make the app run to the maximum capability.
Some debuggers perform tests that identify unused lines of code as well as areas of concern using source maps. Another provides previews of how the app will look and function on different hardware, and on various platforms. As a rule, debuggers perform tests in order to find out what parts of the code have not been tested yet and how to correct them. Now, let’s discuss the top Debugging Tools for Android App Development.
ADB is a substantial CLI client that enables developers to interact with an Android device for debugging and development purposes. Both for an emulator and a physical device, ADB is a command-line tool that offers all that you need to run your app, debug it, and carry out tests.
ADB is very important, particularly for developers who are working specifically with Android devices. It has many features for performing tests, debugging, and managing the application on a real or an emulated device, and this is one of the most crucial tools in an Android application development process.
Chrome DevTools is essential for debugging web applications, but it’s equally valuable to anyone building Android apps that use WebViews or that are based on popular web technologies. With its help, you can view, monitor, and study web content on your Android with the help of one of the most effective tools, Google Chrome DevTools.
If your Android application is using WebViews for loading and displaying web content, then Chrome DevTools is a perfect way to debug and analyze web parts on your device. It is also very useful for debugging issues that belong to the realm of render and JavaScript running.
AppSpector is a tool for monitoring and debugging Android (and iOS) applications on real devices. It provides strong analytics for the app’s performance, network operations, and users; thus, effective for analyzing problems in creation and deployment.
AppSpector is actually indispensable if you are a developer who is developing an application that needs to be tested and debugged on the go during its production or staging. Using it gives the frontend and backend activity details and assists in debugging features such as network issues, UI problems, or even database problems.
Genymotion is one of the Android emulators for copying apps for an early test in various-number-of-simulated device settings. Genymotion provides additional performance and compatibility features as compared to the emulator built-in Android Studio, so many developers use it for debugging.
With Genymotion, one can readily deploy the app on different virtual Android devices with different specifications, hence, would reduce on the time and resources used. Of course, it is particularly useful when you need to debug some problems connected with specific devices’ behavior or the support of certain sizes of a display without using physical devices.
Android Profiler is a development tool in Android Studio that allows you to monitor your app’s performance. It gives you detailed information of your app’s CPU, memory, and network consumption and you can easily find out the problem areas where more attention is required.
Android Profiler is quite useful for improving the functionality of an app. When tracking your app’s CPU, memory, or network activity, you can easily spot any problem – be it memory leaks, high CPU usage, or inefficient network usage. It is an excellent resource when it comes to gauging how well your app is going to perform across a host of platforms.
These tools for Android app development are very important for developers as they produce quick and error-free results in a very short span of time. These app development tools have proven to be a boon for the app development industry.
They have gone through various changes in recent years and the entire app development space is going to change due to the rapid changes in technology and user interface.
With almost a decade of experience in app development, Appventurez has created several spectacular mobile applications for its customers. Our services span mobile app designing, development, and testing. Our dedicated framework for Android App Development helps us figure out what our customers exactly need from us. Therefore, do get in touch with our team of developers to get the best mobile application for your business!
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Elevate your journey and empower your choices with our insightful guidance.
VP - Backend Technology at Appventurez
Auresh Saxena joined Appventurez as VP of Technology (Backend) with 14+ years of experience as a Backend Developer. He has deep technical expertise in React, Node js, Gatsby, Python, PHP jQuery, Quality Assurance, and AWS.
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