For this post, I have Michael Kordvani, a tech blogger and mobile developer, to talk about some ways you can optimize your Android apps.
The goal of any Android app developer is to make a well-performing app. To accomplish this, you must spend some time investing in the optimization process. The process is similar to what web developers do to get more search engine traffic, and it’s for that reason often called “Android App SEO” amongst developers. Spending time up front and during the revision process will maximize your app’s visibility, and since it’s not all about traffic, achieve the highest conversion rate possible. With a well-formulated strategy, your optimized app will be a lot more digestible and effective.
Do Your Research
You need to dive headfirst into analysis before bringing your Android app ideas to the development phase. For new apps, it’s hard to appear anywhere near the top of search results without highly targeted keywords. This will mean less competition in the search function and your Android app will have better chances of appearing in search results.
Choosing your tailored keywords will involve some brainstorming. Your keywords should be based on the features and functionality of the app. While this isn’t necessarily a key to user experience, it doesn’t matter how awesome your product is if no one ever finds it. So getting people there with keywords should be a crucial part of the planning process.
Focus on Layouts
App layouts directly impact the experience of the user. Poorly executed layouts will suck memory and slow user interface (UI). Improving your app’s layout performance requires:
Keeping it Basic: By using basic layout structures, you’ll get the most efficiency out of your layout. Every widget you add beyond that inflates the layout.
Re-Use Layouts: For complex layouts, reusing layouts can be a powerful tool. Reusing layouts means that any elements of your application that are common across layouts can be extracted and managed separately, then included in the layouts. While you can make components by writing a custom view, it’s easier to do by reusing a layout.
Loading Views on Demand: There are sometimes complex views that your layout requires, but are also rarely used. You can greatly reduce the amount of memory used and help speed up the rendering by only promoting view to load as needed.
Reduce Battery Use
A successful Android app developer needs to keep battery usage in mind. The app user is far more likely to stop using an app, and eventually, delete it entirely if the app is draining their battery. To do this:
- Reduce Network Calls
- Avoid Wake Lock
- Use GPS Wisely
- Careful When Using Alarm Manager
- Use Batch Scheduling
Handle Network Requests With Care
If your app is using the internet to upload or download data, there are several reasons to pay closer attention to how it’s handling network requests. One main concern is that it burns up mobile data, which many app users are still limited to, or only have a certain amount of high-speed data before they are throttled. To better manage this, use Prefetch to download features the user may be using in batches. You can also tailor to the kind of internet being used, so if a user is on WiFi, the app will prefetch a lot more data than when on their mobile network.
There are many different ways to optimize an Android app for both visibility and user experience. When you combine the practices above with the basics you should be following when developing each app, you can go above and beyond your competition.
Ever since he was a child, Michael Kordvani has been captivated by technology. When the opportunity arose to spend his life writing about it, Michael didn’t hesitate. He now spends his time exploring, writing about and introducing people to ground-breaking new technologies.
Michael’s insatiable desire for new technology led him to pursue a computer science degree at Queens College. His work has been published on various technology blogs across the web.