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Choose any mobile Operating System (OS) that is not Android or iOS, and read up about its history and features. What do you find interesting about it? What made you choose the mobile OS that you currently use? What Operating Systems are your friends, colleagues and family using? Share your thoughts with your fellow classmates. *Participation is optional

Duration: 15 minutes Total points: 5 Read Edcent Honor Code Click Complete to take the quiz.

Duration: 15 minutes Total points: 5 Read Edcent Honor Code Click Complete to take the quiz.

Duration: 15 minutes Total points: 6 Read Edcent Honor Code Click Complete to take the quiz.

Duration: 15 minutes Total points: 6 Read Edcent Honor Code Click Complete to take the quiz.

To use the Android emulator, you will need to download it first. This reading will guide you through setting up emulator software in Android Studio. Although the set-up process has been captured with a Mac device, the same instructions apply to Windows users. You can download the emulator from the SDK manager located in the top right corner of the Android Studio welcome screen. SelectMenu Icon > SDK Manager. Then, from the settings window, choose Android emulator. Click Apply and Android Studio will download the emulator for you. An Android emulator cannot run on your computer without a virtualization tool for hardware acceleration. Fortunately, Windows 10 comes preloaded with Hyper-V, which is one of the best virtualization tools in the market. For Mac users, you can discover Hyper-V’s status on your computer by running the following command on your terminal. If your computer supports it, the command output will look as follows when turned on showing the kern.hv_support value returning 1: If Hyper-V is not installed on your computer, then Android Studio allows you to install HAXM through its SDK manager. HAXM is another hardware acceleration tool. HAXM is downloaded and installed through the same window you used to download the Android emulator. Wait for the installations to complete, and then restart your computer and Android Studio. Now, select Tools > AVD Manager (for Android Virtual Device) and explore the virtual devices. Downloading a virtual device There’ll be a default virtual device in your AVD manager when you download the Android emulator. However, you can download the device of your choice that has a different screen size or other specifications to test your application for your specific purpose or on a larger scale. When you open the AVD manager, you can locate the button for creating a new virtual device at the top left corner. Each virtual device comprises some hardware and software configurations. The system image of a virtual device represents its software components. When you set out to create a new virtual device, you’ll have to determine its hardware first. This is where you select settings like the screen size, screen resolution, screen pixel density and RAM. You can define the hardware from scratch or use the default hardware options offered by Android Studio. In the hardware selection menu, you’ll also get to see a Play Store icon beside some of the hardware choices. The system image of these devices will have a Play Store integrated into their interfaces. Once you’re done selecting the hardware configurations, click next and you’ll be taken to the system image menu. A system image comprises the Android version, its API level and Application Binary Interface(ABI). ABI defines with great precision, how an application's machine code is supposed to interact with the computer. These selections must be in accordance with your project. Further customizations take place on the last screen for creating a new virtual device. At the bottom of the window, you’ll find a button for the advanced settings. Here you can explore the camera settings, network settings, performance and storage of your virtual device as per your application’s needs. The performance section of the settings gives you three options: Cold boot: It will start your device as if you’re turning it on for the first time. Quick boot: It will remember the last state of your device and the next time you run the Android emulator it will show you the same screen. Snapshot: This refers to the state of the Android emulator. You get to save the state yourself and it’ll kick off from the same page the next time you run the emulator. The memory and storage section of the settings gives you options to configure the device RAM, VM heap, Internal storage and SD card.

A fundamental lesson every developer should be aware of is “don’t reinvent the wheel.” Understanding how to use external libraries and packages in Android Studio is a big part of that. This is because, if you need to perform a common task, you probably don’t need to write the code yourself. Instead, you can use libraries to help get the job done more efficiently. Why use libraries? Libraries extend the capabilities of the Android software development kit (SDK), allowing you to use code written by other developers. These open source libraries are hosted on an external server and are downloaded by the build system, Gradle, when you are building a project. The best libraries provide entirely new functionalities and give you access to awesome functions with lesser code as a developer. Unlike copying and pasting code, libraries are entirely portable and easy to plug in too. This makes it easy to access advanced features with minimal work or confusion. Types of libraries Below are the various categories in Android development and the common libraries used in them: Image loading Image loading libraries come in handy to avoid high memory consumption caused by loading multiple images at the same time. For example, Fresco is an image loading library focused on providing a smooth scrolling experience while an image is loading. Fresco ensures image loading is as swift and smooth as possible by applying smart caching to minimize storage overhead. Videos Displaying videos is usually a daunting task for developers during development. Without the use of a library, the processes and details to take care of can be too numerous to handle. ExoPlayer built by Google is an example of an Android media player library. It offers an alternative to Android’s MediaPlayer API to play audio and video, locally or online, with some additional advantages. One of ExoPlayer’s biggest benefits is its ease of customization. Networking Nowadays, virtually every mobile app needs some sort of network communication to perform one function or another. Fortunately, there are incredible networking libraries available to help you optimize this process. For example, Retrofit is the most used networking library in Android development. It provides you with a great way to make internet calls within your application.

Duration: 15 minutes Total points: 5 Read Edcent Honor Code Click Complete to take the quiz.