Android gotchas and lessons learned [closed]

Question

What are some things you wish you had known about Android when you first started out or before you published your first app on the market? I am nearing completion on my first and am starting to make sure I have crossed my proverbial Ts and dotted the Is

Answer 1

• Save you keystore file. If you lose it, you will not be able to update your app.

• Use <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="3" android:targetSdkVersion="4"/> to be compatible with 1.5 and newer devices.

• Make your icons based on the Icon Design Guidelines.

Answer 2

Test your app on all Android versions before release to Market, or, if you're too lazy, just on:

1. 1.5 (older one, lacks support of some classes that 2.x does)
2. 2.1 (most modern devices)
3. 2.2 (most current, not much devices for now, has some internal rendering changes)

Earlier than 1.5 are hard to find, so can be safely ignored.

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android-remote-stacktrace is also very useful thing

Answer 3

Here's some things you can try:

1. Stress-testing

   adb shell monkey -v -p your.package.name 500
   

   It will help you to do some stress testing before publishing to Market.

2. Test your app for memory leaks. It's very easy to leak context. This post will help http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/01/avoiding-memory-leaks.html.

3. Test your app on some device with Sense UI like EVO4G. Many things are different there.
4. Take a look at this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2094588/android-development-tips-tricks-gotchas for some more pointers about Android development