At WWDC this year we saw the announcement for SwiftUI, a new way to build user interfaces for our iOS applications in a declarative manner. Whilst SwiftUI is still in beta and there are likely changes to occur in the syntax, it’s felt worthwhile digging into it to prepare for the future approach for building… Continue reading
Author Archives → hitherejoe
Media Store access using openFile() on Android 10
As of Android 10, things have changed slightly with how we access files that are contained outside of our application. This change of behaviour has come from the concept of scoped storage – which aims to improve the privacy of user files, adding more control to how files are accessed within the android system. Even… Continue reading
Using Firebase on Android with Kotlin Coroutines
Whilst recently working on a side project I ran into a situation where I needed to make use of the Android Firebase SDKs. This project of mine uses Kotlin Coroutines for all of the asynchronous task handling, so ideally I wanted to keep any Firebase calls to use the same approach – not only so… Continue reading
Exploring View Binding on Android
When it comes to manipulating our user interfaces within Android applications, there are a couple of approaches that we can take. In these cases, we need to obtain a reference these views in-order to manipulate them in some way. For this, we’ll either use findViewById(), followed by casting the view to the corresponding type. Or… Continue reading
Performing OAuth on Android with Custom Tabs
Whether we’re building third-party clients for existing API services, or working on our own product that communicates with our own API, it’s likely that we might be working with authentication that uses a form of OAuth. This standard of authentication approach is something that we’re bound to use at some point in our careers, but… Continue reading
Adding admob adverts to Flutter applications
In many applications that we build we want to offer some way to monetize the product. Be it through in-app purchases, subscriptions or even advertisements – these all provide a way for developers to monetize their application. We’ve long experienced, or implemented, ads through our Android and iOS applications, and now that we’re building Flutter… Continue reading
Exploring App Actions on Android: What are App Actions?
At Google I/O 2018 we were introduced to App Actions, but it was only at I/O this year that we were given the ability to hook into this functionality within our own apps. In this first part of articles focused on App Actions I want to take a quick look into exactly what they are,… Continue reading
Keeping cool in Android Q with the Thermal API
We’ve all been there are some point – using our Android device and things start to feel like they’re getting a bit warm in our hands. Whether we’re playing a game or using an application that is performing an intensive operation, these things can often require a lot of resources which makes our device work… Continue reading
Exploring Android Jetpack: Preferences
Settings screens provide a way for our users to configure our application for the way in which they want it to look, feel and behave. As well as this, it’s also a great place for us to provide links to external information such as privacy policies, open-source licences and more. Whilst we can build these… Continue reading
Adding in-app purchases to Flutter apps
In many applications that we build we want to offer some way to monetize the product. Be it through subscriptions, one-off purchases or upgrades – these all provide a way to offer more value to our users. We’ve long done this through our Android (via Google Play) and iOS (via iTunes) applications, and now that… Continue reading