Most folks believe that since Android devices have a lot of cores, writing smooth apps is a walk in the park. Well, nothing can be farther from the truth. The thing is since just about everything on Android can be done in a lot of different ways, choosing the best option can be an uphill task. It takes a certain amount of know-how to be able to make the right choices. Thankfully, there are lots of tips and tricks that can help you optimize the performance of Android apps you are involved with.
This is particularly important since optimized apps provide heavenly user experiences while saving the battery of the device being used. Did you know that the majority of users uninstalled hordes of apps after the first use due to the poor performance of these apps? If you get the implication of this fact, then you understand that app performance is key and must not be taken lightly. That’s why we want to share some tips and tricks to help you’re coding Android apps. Read on.
You need to understand that object creation is never free. The more objects you allocate in your app, the tendency to force periodic garbage collection, which create glitches in the user experience, arises. This is why you should avoid creating object instances that you don’t need. It is in your best interest to avoid creating short-term temporary objects as much as possible. This is because fewer objects created mean less-frequent garbage collection, which directly impacts on the user experience.
Basically,
floating-points are about 2x slower than integers on Android-powered
devices. In terms of speed, there’s no difference between float and
double on the more modern hardware. When it comes to space, double is
2x larger. When dealing with desktop machines, double is preferable
to float, that’s assuming that space is not an issue.
Note
that some processors have hardware multiply but lack the hardware
divide, even with integers. In such cases, integer division and
modulus operations are performed in software.
Accurate measurements are key to optimizing your Android app performance, but the first step is to make sure that there is a problem that needs solving. You have to be sure that you can accurately measure the current performance of the existing apps. It is important because it allows you to measure the benefit of the alternatives you try.
What data types do you intend to use for your collection? It is crucial that you determine this before you start coding. Do you intend to use a Vector or an ArrayList ? In the event that you need a collection with unique objects, what do you do? Well, if a simple group of unique items is involved, you might want to try a HashSet or a LinkedHashSet when you want to preserve the order of items in which they were selected. Then there is the TreeSet, which automatically sorts items. Choosing the right data structure for the right job will greatly enhance the performance of your Android apps.
Try to use only the most precise location that you need for apps that need it. For example, apps that deal with weather forecasting don’t need the most accurate location when a very rough estimate based on the network is faster, and more battery efficient. You can achieve this by setting the priority to LocationRequest.
One other function of LocationRequest that you can use is known as set Smallest Displacement. Adjusting the location in meters will cause your app not to be informed about changes in location when it is smaller than the given value. Try to set the required interval whereby the device updates the app about the location. So location updates can only be requested only as often as you need them. Use the set interval function for setting the required interval in which the device will be updating your app about the location. To prevent your app from being notified too often by ensuring that you set the fastest update interval with set Fastest Interval.
Optimizing the performance of Android apps can be very complicated since there are a lot of ways of doing everything. The best way is to understand the basics as much as you can. This enables you to arrive at the best solutions for the particular situation you are in. We hope you find these tips and tricks we shared valuable enough for you to apply. Let what we have shared guide your coding journey and help you find other tips and tricks that will help along the way. Contact us when you are ready to see how your code fares on our devices.
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