Asynchronous Android Programming - Second Edition - ebook

Unlock the power of multi-core mobile devices to build responsive and reactive Android applications

About This Book

• Construct scalable and performant applications to take advantage of multi-thread asynchronous techniques
• Explore the high-level Android asynchronous constructs available on the Android SDK
• Choose the most appropriate asynchronous technique to implement your next outstanding feature

Who This Book Is For

This book is for Android developers who want to learn how to build multithreaded and reliable Android applications using high-level and advanced asynchronous techniques and concepts. No prior knowledge of concurrent and asynchronous programming is required. This book will also be great for Java experts who are new to Android.

Whether you are a beginner at Android development or a seasoned Android programmer, this book will guide you through the most basic and advanced asynchronous constructs used in Android programming.

What You Will Learn

• Get familiar with the android process model and low-level concurrent constructs delivered by the Android SDK
• Use AsyncTask and loader framework to load data in the background, delivering progress results in the meantime
• Create services that interact with your activity without compromising the UI rendering
• Learn the working of Android concurrency on the Native Layer
• Interact with nearby devices over Bluetooth and WiFi communications channels
• Create and compose tasks with RxJava to execute complex asynchronous work in a predictable way
• Get accustomed to the use of the Android Loader construct to deliver up-to-date results

In Detail

Asynchronous programming has acquired immense importance in Android programming, especially when we want to make use of the number of independent processing units (cores) available on the most recent Android devices. With this guide in your hands you'll be able to bring the power of Asynchronous programming to your own projects, and make your Android apps more powerful than ever before!

To start with, we will discuss the details of the Android Process model and the Java Low Level Concurrent Framework, delivered by Android SDK. We will also guide you through the high-level Android-specific constructs available on the SDK: Handler, AsyncTask, and Loader. Next, we will discuss the creation of IntentServices, Bound Services and External Services, which can run in the background even when the user is not interacting with it. You will also discover AlarmManager and JobScheduler APIs, which are used to schedule and defer work without sacrificing the battery life. In a more advanced phase, you will create background tasks that are able to execute CPU-intensive tasks in a native code-making use of the Android NDK. You will be then guided through the process of interacting with remote services asynchronously using the HTTP protocol or Google GCM Platform. Using the EventBus library, we will also show how to use the Publish-Subscribe software pattern to simplify communication between the different Android application components by decoupling the event producer from event consumer.

Finally, we will introduce RxJava, a popular asynchronous Java framework used to compose work in a concise and reactive way. Asynchronous Android will help you to build well-behaved applications with smooth responsive user interfaces that delight the users with speedy results and data that's always fresh.

Style and approach

This easy-to-follow guide is full of code examples of real-world use cases. Each asynchronous topic is explained sequentially, from the most basic and low-level to the more advanced, using concise and effective language. Some lifecycle flows and concepts feature illustrations to help you understand the complex interactions between Android entities.