How to Build Android Apps with Kotlin: A hands-on guide to developing, testing, and publishing your first apps with Android

Master the fundamentals of Android programming and apply your skills to create scalable and reliable apps using industry best practices

Key Features

• Build apps with Kotlin, Google’s preferred programming language for Android development
• Unlock solutions to development challenges with guidance from experienced Android professionals
• Improve your apps by adding valuable features that make use of advanced functionality

Book Description

Are you keen to get started building Android 11 apps, but don’t know where to start? How to Build Android Apps with Kotlin is a comprehensive guide that will help kick-start your Android development practice.

This book starts with the fundamentals of app development, enabling you to utilize Android Studio and Kotlin to get started building Android projects. You'll learn how to create apps and run them on virtual devices through guided exercises. Progressing through the chapters, you'll delve into Android’s RecyclerView to make the most of lists, images, and maps, and see how to fetch data from a web service.

Moving ahead, you'll get to grips with testing, learn how to keep your architecture clean, understand how to persist data, and gain basic knowledge of the dependency injection pattern. Finally, you'll see how to publish your apps on the Google Play store.

You'll work on realistic projects that are split up into bitesize exercises and activities, allowing you to challenge yourself in an enjoyable and attainable way. You'll build apps to create quizzes, read news articles, check weather reports, store recipes, retrieve movie information, and remind you where you parked your car.

By the end of this book, you'll have the skills and confidence to build your own creative Android applications using Kotlin.

What you will learn

• Create maintainable and scalable apps using Kotlin
• Understand the Android development lifecycle
• Simplify app development with Google architecture components
• Use standard libraries for dependency injection and data parsing
• Apply the repository pattern to retrieve data from outside sources
• Publish your app on the Google Play store

Who this book is for

If you want to build your own Android applications using Kotlin but are unsure of how to begin, then this book is for you. To easily grasp the concepts in this book, it is recommended that you already have a basic understanding of Kotlin, or experience in a similar programming language and a willingness to brush up on Kotlin before you start.

Table of Contents

1. Creating Your First App
2. Building User Screen Flows
3. Developing the UI with Fragments
4. Building App Navigation
5. Essential Libraries: Retrofit, Moshi, and Glide
6. RecyclerView
7. Android Permissions and Google Maps
8. Services, WorkManager, and Notifications
9. Unit Tests and Integration Tests with JUnit, Mockito, and Espresso
10. Android Architecture Components
11. Persisting Data
12. Dependency Injection with Dagger and Koin
13. RxJava and Coroutines
14. Architecture Patterns
15. Animations and Transitions with CoordinatorLayout and MotionLayout
16. Launching Your App on Google Play

Alex Forrester is an experienced software developer with more than 20 years of experience in mobile, web development, and content management systems. He has been working with Android for over 8 years, creating flagship apps for blue-chip companies across a broad range of industries at Sky, The Automobile Association, HSBC, The Discovery Channel, and O2. Alex lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and daughter. When he’s not developing, he likes rugby and running in the Chiltern hills.

Eran Boudjnah is a developer with over 20 years of experience in developing desktop applications, websites, interactive attractions, and mobile applications. He has been working with Android for about 7 years, developing apps and leading mobile teams for a wide range of clients, from start-ups (JustEat) to large-scale companies (Sky) and conglomerates. He is passionate about board games (with a modest collection of a few hundred games) and has a Transformers collection he’s quite proud of. Eran lives in North London with Lea, his wife.

Alexandru Dumbravan started Android development in 2011 working for a digital agency. Since 2016, he moved to London working mainly in the FinTech sector. Over the course of his career, he has had the opportunity to analyze and integrate many different technologies on Android devices, from well-known, like Facebook login, or less known, like proprietary network protocols.

Jomar Tigcal is an Android developer with over 10 years of experience in mobile and software development. He worked on various stages of app development for small startups to large companies. Jomar has also given talks and conducted training and workshops on Android. In his free time, he likes running and reading. He lives in Vancouver, Canada with his wife Celine.