What is Android development?

Java is the official language used in Android development, with lines of code compiled on Dalvik Virtual Machines. Most Android APIs are meant to work with Java, which is also the Android Studio’s natural coding language.

Many other programming languages can be used by Android developers, however. React Native app development has grown to become among the most popular ways of creating applications, allowing developers to create apps for both iOS and Android using JavaScript and commonly used UI frameworks to accelerate development. Additionally, C# combines the basics of C++ and Java to provide a high-level but still useful coding language that enables users new to coding to begin developing Android apps.

C/C++, Kotlin, BASIC and Lua can also be used in Android development.

Activities 

The single-screen user interface that acts as an entry point for the user to interact with an app is called the activity. Independent activities work together to form a cohesive user experience and are responsible for facilitating key interactions between the system and the app, such as keeping track of what is on the screen, to ensure the system continues running the process hosting the activity. This prioritizes previously used processes so the user can return to them, allowing apps to restore previous states after being killed and to implement user flows between each other.

Services

Services act as a general-purpose entry point for keeping an app running in the background while another application is in use or the user is not actively navigating the device. An example of a service is music playing in the background while a user is in another app. There are two types of services: 

• Started services, which keep an app running in the background until its process is completed
• Bound services, which keep running because another app or the system is making use of it to function

Content Providers 

A content provider manages shared sets of data that can be stored in the file system and later accessed by an app. Content providers allow approved apps to query or modify data. An example would be a content provider that manages a user’s contact information and allows apps with the proper permissions to query the content provider and read and write information about a particular contact.

Broadcast Receivers

A broadcast receiver allows the system to deliver events to an app outside of its regular user flow, such as system-wide broadcast announcements. An example of this is an app scheduling an alarm that notifies the user of an upcoming event. The app can deliver that alarm to the broadcast receiver, which allows it to close until the alarm goes off. Broadcasts often come from the system itself, alerting users to things like shutdowns, low battery levels or when a picture has been taken.