Moving from IOS background to Android app development

The entry of smartphones in our lives has made us completely lean towards technology. Mobile phones have now become a necessity mainly due to the new and exciting apps and addictive games that are released every day on the app store. Such mobile app development takes place on various platforms like Android, Windows, and iOS and comes with various features that always make us stick to our mobile screens.

Various mobile app development companies are gaining prominence with the drastic increase in the number of apps and games being released on the app store. There is a growing demand for new application ideas from various companies. The craze is such that even iOS developers are switching to developing apps on the Android platform. But, the main problem they face is the proper execution of the apps in Android app development. So, here we have information for iOS app developers converted to Android. I hope it is useful.

Android and iOS app development are quite similar

Developers moving from iOS app development to Android app development have the misconception that they would have to go through the process of learning a whole new language all together. But, that is not the truth, because you already have those developing abilities present in you. Also, being an iOS developer, you need to be very aware of Objective-C or Swift.

While programming with Android, we use the concept of Object Oriented Programming and Java as a base, which is similar to Objective-C and Swift. The concept of delegates, override methods and subclasses are also used in iOS and thus Android app development becomes easy for the iOS developer. Almost all the concepts and logic used on both platforms are the same, only in Android application development, the Java language is used. Therefore, the developer should be well familiar with Java keywords, as he will be using keywords like override, implement, extend, etc., and not the ones used in iOS.

Android Studio and X code – Usage difference

It’s often quite annoying to use the Xcode IDE, but there have now been some major improvements made over the last few years. In Android app development via Android Studio, some of Xcode’s features can also be implemented.

Android Studio greatly reduces the standard coding practice of overriding methods, subclasses, import statements, etc. used in iOS development by making use of Java keywords. Although both Xcode and Android Studio work quite similarly, there are still some differences in the UI code written in both IDEs. Where on the one hand Android uses separate xml files, on the other hand Xcode uses storyboards and tips.

screen size difference

Dealing with screen sizes had been a problem for iOS developers. This is because before they used to work with a single screen size, while in Android app development, developers work with multiple screen sizes. The later addition of multiple screen sizes on iPhones put iOS developers in a bind. But, the Android platform has always been experimenting with screen sizes and creating new additions by making improvements to the tools. Now on Android one can not only deal with multiple screen sizes but also multiple screen densities.

Android platform developers seem to be much more satisfied with Android’s XML attributes and file structure layouts than they are with size classes and automatic layout on iOS. One can easily see the difference between Android and iOS by using various XML concepts like content wrapping and parent matching.