Best Android Libraries For App Development 

Smartphones are changing the way users interact with different brands and businesses. With a large section of internet users accessing the internet from mobile devices only, the businesses need to serve this section using different mobile apps. Do you know that 134.5 thousand Android apps were released in May 2019 only?

The options to choose from the native or hybrid mobile apps ensure that businesses can go for any of these based on the Android or iOS operating system users. When it comes to Android app development, it is a dedicated process that is labor-intensive, complex, and time-consuming.

Languages and libraries are a must for any Android app development. Libraries are behavior implementation programs with a well-defined interface and programming languages. Let us know some of the key reasons any Android developer must use different libraries.

Why Use Android Libraries For App Development?

The year 2022 is set to define new standards for the digitization that are incomplete without developing creative, high-performing, and bugs-free mobile applications. If any Android app developer wants to go for the expedited and optimized app development, seeking the help of libraries is a sure-shot success.

There is no need for the app developers to get tired of creating a fantastic app when it can be accomplished with simple steps involving Android libraries. The bugs-free development of highly responsive apps in the least resources is not to miss.

It is easy for the new developers to use the pre-written codes and other essential elements that can be used instantly rather than writing them from scratch. The new developers can go for the Android libraries for quick, effortless, precise, and feature-rich app development. Let us now go through the top and best Android libraries for any developer that can be used in 2022.

Best Android Libraries To Use For App Development

We’ll discuss the top five types of Android libraries that are as under:

1. Scanning Libraries

These libraries help developers include the canning functions in any Android app. Two popular scanning libraries include:

a) CAMView

It is a popular Android camera access library with an embedded QR scanner based on ZXing. It offers quick access to the developers to multiple features by arranging the layout files. These features include barcode scanning with ZXing’s decoding engine, individual camera lives data processing, the live preview video feed from the device camera, etc.

b) ZXing

ZXing or “Zebra Crossing” is the barcode image-processing Android library based on Java and is easily portable to other programming languages. It offers support to 2D barcodes, 1D industrial, and 1D products. Some of the common uses of ZXing include Google, which uses it to make multiple barcodes indexable on the web, Android’s Barcode Scanner app, Google Product, Google Book Search, etc.

2. Debugging Libraries

The main Android libraries that come to play before releasing the apps are the debugging libraries. Two famous debugging libraries include:

a) Hyperlog-Android

It is a useful debugging library that is used to store logs in the Android libraries and push them to distant servers for debugging. In addition, it is a utility logger library that helps debug issues and offer end-to-end visibility. Some of the common applications include HyperTrack SDK that pushes logs to Hyperlog server that further uses ELK stack to process them and visualize the results on Kibana.

b) Stetho

Termed as the “sophisticated debug bridge for Android applications,” it can not only debug but offers access to the Chrome Developer Tools that are part of the Chrome desktop browser. It offers network inspection, database inspection, JavaScript Console, etc. In addition, it gives an option to the developers to enable the dump app tool that offers a powerful command-line interface for application internals.

3. Drawing Libraries

These libraries help developers make their apps stand out from the other apps with creative drawing capabilities. The top four drawing libraries include:

a) Holo Graph Library

It is one of the new graphic libraries ideal for adding designed charts and graphs. Liked by many Android app developers globally, it offers a range of features, including MultiSeriesSonutGraph View, PieGraph View, BarGraph View, and LineGraph View.

b) MyLittleCanvas

Counted as another top-ranking drawing library, MyLittleCanvas offers customized underlines on a TextView, can apply lineshape, text shape, etc. In addition, it uses canvas methods and can be used to archive multiple features.

c) AnimatedPieView

It offers ring graphs and pie charts on different Android applications. Some of the favorite features of the Android app developers include animation while drawing charts, the transformation between a ring chart and pie diagram, right text field position itself during animation, alpha animation on touch, etc.

d) MPAndroidChart

It is another preferred option in the top drawing Android libraries. It offers dragging, animations, candlestick charts with scaling, pie, bubble, bar, line, radar, etc., and is a chart/ graph view library. Not only Android development, Charts is available for dedicated iOS development also.

e) UI Components Libraries

The user interface or UI components libraries ensure seamless and advanced UI development for all Android apps. One such highly functional and robust UI components library is:

f) Gravity View

It is an advanced UI components library that uses sensors for image titling. It utilizes the motion sensors of Android devices and allows users to perform multiple functions by device rotation. One of the first applications using Gravity View includes “Fynd.” The Android system needs to be more than a 3.0 version to use Gravity View and can be used on non-gyroscope devices with the help of an Accelerometer sensor.

4. Image Loading Libraries

These libraries handle the app’s memory when multiple images are required to be loaded on the app. Two popular image loading libraries include:

a) Glide

Managed Bumptech, Glide is one of the top image loading Android libraries. It is one of the few Android libraries recommended by technical giant Google. It offers animated GIF support that handles image loading, image caching, decoding, fetching, or displaying the GIFs, images, video calls, etc. With a default stack of HttpUrlConnection, Glide can further get plugged into any network stack with the help of flexible API.

b) Picasso

It allows hassle-free image loading on Android applications and is managed by Square. It offers one-line code, facilitates complex image transformations using minimal memory, automatic memory, caching, downloading cancelation in an adapter, handling ImageView recycling, etc. Some of the critical features of Picasso include automatic detection of adapter re-use, previously canceled download, ease, the practical transformation of images to reduce memory size and fit them better, specifically customized transformations, etc.

5. Testing Libraries

App testing is an integral part of Android app development. The following two are the ideal testing libraries that help developers create highly competitive and effective Android apps:

a) Roboelectric

It is a widely used unit testing library that simulates the Android SDK for tests without different mocking frameworks like Mockito. It can handle rising numbers of resource loading, make tests created in the library more effective, increase efficiencies of the real-time functions using the Android framework dependencies framework. It is easy to add dependency in the app’s structure by using build. Gradle file and then create a sample test class.

b) Espresso

It can quickly build the user interface tests and is one of the test frameworks parts of the Android testing support library. It allows the Android developers to write tests, check TextView text’s similarity to the other tests, etc. Moreover, it can offer the impression of the actual users using the app and running on simulators and real devices. It can be used by adding the dependency build. Gradle file in the app structure. It is followed by setting the instrumentation runner and synchronizing the Gradle files. Finally, a rest file is created as a part of the app bundle.

6. React Programming Libraries

These libraries help transfer data from source to subscribers. It helps data release from one component to the other component termed subscriber, which further handles asynchronous tasks effortlessly. One of the top react programming libraries include:

a) RxJava 2

One of the widely used Android libraries offers quick implementation of reacting programming in the apps. It is called the “library for composing asynchronous and event-based programs using observable sequences.” Some of the valuable features of RxJava 2 include the ability to highlight errors earlier than other libraries, opening straightforward ways to declare working of concurrent operations, simplifying the async chain operations, etc.

7. View Binding Libraries

These libraries reduce the boilerplate code while assigning views to different variables arose. Two widely used view binding libraries include:

a) Android Databinding

It is an in-built Android Support Library that requires a minimum of Android Studio Version 1.3 for seamless working. There is no need for annotations in Android Databinding. It allows developers to fix the UI components in the layouts to different data sources in the app. It doesn’t use programmatically but uses declarative formats. For example, findViewByld() is used to find the TextView widget to bind the userName property of the variable ViewModel. Hence, layouts are defined using the code that requires UI framework methods.

b) ButterKnife

It is developed by Jake Wharton and helps assign ids to views seamlessly. There is no need for the findViewByld. Hence, ideally, going by the statement, “Butterknife is like Daggar only infinitely less sharp,” holds with no dependency injection requirements. It uses the ButterKnife annotations to create the boilerplate codes. Hence, there is no need for the onTouch, onClick, etc., while replacing these with the auto-injected codes in the app.

8. Networking Libraries

These libraries help establish networking communication in the apps. Top and popular three networking libraries include:

a) Activity Recognition API

This API quickly recognizes all user activities like standing still, driving, strolling, etc., are quickly recognized by this API. The “Request Updates” can help developers demand updates on activity by simply pressing, and “Eliminate Updates” can quit getting the updates. The ActivityRecognitionResultobjects are used to send the identified activity changes utilized by the IntentService, which further get a total rundown of likely identified exercises. These can be broadcasted using the BroadcastReceiver.

b) EventBus

It is one of the best libraries that utilize the subscriber/publisher design to deal with Android apps having dynamic components facing communication issues. It simplifies the communication between collectors, event senders, decouple, parts, activities, background threads, fragments, etc. It further offers subscriber needs delivery threads, eliminates life cycle issues, complex or error-prone dependencies, etc. In addition, all the classes associated with EventBus are entirely decoupled from one another for prompting codes that are easy to keep up with, troubleshoot, and are less complex.

c) Retrofit

It resolves the issues of making a network request that requires the execution of the Async task class and the use of HttpsUrlConnection to fetch data that is not feasible in the APIs dealing with returning extensive data. It is a type-safe REST client for Android applications, and Java intelligently mapped to API into a client interface using annotations.

Some of the top features of Retrofit include manipulating endpoints headers, adding request body query parameters, selecting request methods, taking care of POJOs parsing with converters, etc. It can be used by simply adding a dependency build Gradle file into the app. It is followed by adding the dependency for converters required in the apps.

9. Dependency Injector Libraries

The dependency injection is the method of creating good Android libraries architecture for apps and is one of the widely used programs in Android development. One of the popular dependency injection libraries is Dagger 2.

a) Dagger 2

It relies on the Java annotation processors and compile-time to analyze and estimate dependencies. It is free from general Android library limitations like XML, performance penalties during startup, validating dependencies, etc. Dagger 2 further simplifies the access to shared instances. For example, with @Inject annotation, different fields can be declared in instances like SharedPreferences, MyTwitterApiClient, etc.

How To Select An Ideal Android Library For Your Use?

With many options available in the Android libraries, finding an ideal library for your Android app development project may become difficult. Here is a quick guide that can help beginners and experienced Android app developers:

• Author’s Reliability: It is essential to do a background check of the Android library by checking the author’s details. It helps eliminate the chances of getting stuck with a low-quality library. It can be verified by going through the author’s reliability on Github or checking other verified Android libraries.
• License Authentication: It is crucial to use the correct license to make Android libraries available to multiple developers. It helps determine the correct terms of the library that can be further integrated into the apps.
• Library Recommendations: Many developers go through the library recommendations that are high-quality, well-documented, and well-maintained. These offer low-risk and follow the library packs.
• Library’s Popularity: It is recommended to go for the top popular Android libraries that can be determined with the number of star ratings, the severity of issues reported in the library, etc. It is recommended to go for the Android libraries widely recommended by the other developers.
• Core Features: Like any other decision-making from the list of choices, it is essential to go through the key features of the Android libraries. It helps developers find an ideal product according to the app’s needs.
• Open-Source: It is crucial to access the library codes and go for the open-source libraries that offer complete transparency to eliminate the risks.
• Well-Written Library: It is essential to go through the code of the Android library and confirm if it is well-structured and clutter-free or not. The library codes must include an up-to-date README file that makes integration smooth and effortless.

Wrapping Up

Any Android app development is incomplete without the dedicated use of different libraries. Therefore, android developers need to create more apps in reduced time without affecting the app quality, which is one of the primary benefits of the different Android libraries.

After going through the quick list of the top Android libraries to use in 2022, developers may seem confused in selecting the ideal one according to their needs. The quick guide to choosing the perfect Android library ensures that developers don’t stress out the available options.

Android app development is leading the trend like never before, with more than 3.48 million active apps on Google Play in 2021. Henceforth, it is essential to speed up the development process, reduce the initial investments, and improve the app quality using other developers’ experiences.

Emizentech is a well-known app development company that can help you in building unique and robust mobile apps for any purpose. So, do get in touch for your next app idea.

Frequently Asked Questions About Android Libraries