How to Optimize Android App Performance

To rule the app market kingdom, you got to overpower with performance.

It is your app’s performance that takes you to the throne. It is very crucial for your app to deliver impeccable results in order to reinforce brand recognition and visibility. If done right, it can transform the ratings and revenue, but the same if gone wrong can cost you big time on downloads, earnings and brand perception. Thus, knowing how your app is performing and spotting bottlenecks is critical.

However, most of the app developers end up facing several challenges during the process of Android app development.

• There are several android OS versions which developers might find hard to keep up when it comes to development.
• There are nearly 170+ devices running the OS. Each device has different features with respect to screen size, camera buttons, keyboard forms, etc., making development a nightmare.

So, helping you overcome this nightmare, here are some key points which will help in optimizing your app’s performance and will keep its functioning as flawlessly as possible:

WebP Image Format Instead of PNGThis is one of the important tips that needs to kept in mind while developing an android application. The size of the WebP image is less than the PNG; about 45% of PNG's size. So using WebP results in the decrease of your application as well as decreased usage of user's important data if images are being downloaded from the server.

Even Facebook app uses images in WebP format and we can see how much we use the app as well as adore it.

Optimising Layout Hierarchies

Using the basic layout structures leads to most efficient layouts. However, each widget and layout that you add to your application requires initialisation and drawing. For example, using nested instances of LinearLayout can lead to an excessively deep view hierarchy. Furthermore, nesting several instances of LinearLayout that use the layout_weight parameter can be especially expensive as each child needs to be measured twice. This particularly becomes important when the layout is inflated repeatedly, as used in a ListView or GridView.

Let’s CacheCaching is that portion of the computer’s memory that retains recently utilized information. In order to enable quick usage while enhancing performance and lowering traffic on the network, it stocks up images, files and web pages on its local hard drive. Since downloading external resources can be highly time-consuming, it is important to pay special attention to cache your images. This will certainly save time and retain your customer.

Smooth ScrollingIn order to make your app score on the lines of scrolling, prefer using UI thread for UI only. This will end up solving and handling 99% of your problems. Keep yourself away from the following on UI thread:

• Load images
• Networking calls
• Parse JSON
• Access databases

There are other means and ways to do them.

For images, networking and JSON, it is recommended to use libraries. For database access, consider using Loader, which does batch updates to databases, and makes you focus on what’s important.

APM In ChargeAPM (Application Performance Monitoring) checks and maintains the performance and delivery of software applications. Useful in spotting and finding intricate application performance problems to establish a minimum mark of service across the board, APM operates on two sets of performance evaluators -

those that are related to the performance as per user experience;

those which check the computational resources that the Android app employs for the load.

ConclusionMobile app performance serves as the point mine when it comes to retention rate, ratings, download ratios, conversions and yes, not to forget the revenue. So putting in efforts on the creation of a robust Android app that satisfies and goes beyond the performance expectations of the users strengthens their viewpoints on the brand and establishes a deeper connection.

An accomplished Online Marketing Expert, She has provided digital marketing services across the globe. Her vast knowledge and experience motivates her in contributing in the form of writing on the latest technologi