Preface

I’ve been developing Android applications for research since 2010. I started on Android 1.0 (using the HTC Dream) and witnessed changes unfold at a rapid pace. When I had time to tinker, I kept mostly up to date with the source code of AOSP, daring to compile from scratch my own phone firmware. You can find some of my posts at XDA-Developers' forums, back from when I had an HTC Magic, Nexus One, OnePlus and even Mobile Phone 6.5 series under the user “dferreira” 😄 In September, I joined Solita Oy to create and build mobile solutions. Since then, I had to revisit what changed on Android. To no-one’s surprise, my experience with Android needed updating. Here you’ll find a summary of the new goodies on Android development.

Kotlin

It is an understatement to say that Kotlin is just another alternative language. Kotlin is a very powerful, yet stupidly simple language to learn. The traditional “Hello World” would look like this:

fun main() {
    println("Hello World")
}

What is great about Kotlin is that it runs on the JVM and is 100% compatible with Java’s legacy: i.e., UNLIMITED POWER 💪