Because of its stable platform, incredible versatility, and widespread use in the mobile development community, the Java programming language remains one of the most popular programming languages in the world. It’s used for a wide range of tasks, including desktop, server-side, online, and mobile Android app development.
Java is now the second-most popular programming language among software engineers, according to GitHub. Java is also the most popular programming language for mobile app development, according to other research. These are the two main reasons why Java developers are in high demand in the software business.
Because substantial portions of the Android OS were created in Java and its APIs are designed for Java, Java is highly desired for Android development.
It also performs well on a variety of hardware platforms, is well-known among developers, and runs in a virtual machine, so it doesn’t need to be recompiled for each phone model.
Java for Android mobile app development is still one of the most popular Java applications in the world, with Spotify, Twitter, Signal, and CashApp among the most popular.
Spotify
Spotify is the world’s most well-known music streaming service. With the click of a mouse, consumers can listen to practically every song, artist, or album ever recorded. As a result, this type of service now accounts for more than 37% of all music buyers.
The music platform, which was founded in 2006 in Sweden, today has an estimated 217 million active users, with 100 million paying for the company’s premium membership service.
In addition, the company has a 36 percent market share in mobile streaming and generates around $1.68 billion in sales per fiscal quarter.
For app development, the popular music streaming service employs a variety of languages, including C++ for the desktop application. For its web application, the company uses JavaScript, and for its iOS apps, it uses C.
When it comes to Android programming, though, Java reigns supreme. This is due to the fact that Java is one of two official Android development languages, and Android’s APIs make Java development considerably easier and more easy.
Another great example of a company that successfully employs Java for mobile development is Twitter, a popular social networking and microblogging service.
Since its inception in 2006, the firm has quickly grown to become one of the world’s most essential venues for regular social media contacts, news sharing, and debate. Almost every celebrity, corporate leader, and political commentator makes use of the platform to enhance their social network and impact.
As a result, the company’s website has risen to become the world’s 39th most popular website. The company has a market worth of $26.2 billion and 326 million active users.
Twitter has adopted Java for all of its Android app development needs, partly because it is one of Google’s two recognized languages for mobile apps and works well across a variety of devices.
Cash App
Cash App, formerly known as Square Cash, is a mobile payment application that allows users to send money to one another fast and conveniently. Customers begin by creating a unique $cashtag, or username, which they use to transfer and receive money from others.
In May 2019, Cash App reported that it has reached 15 million monthly active users, more than double the number of accounts it had at the end of 2017. In 2018, the company added Bitcoin trading to the service, resulting in a profit of more than $1.7 million for the company.
The majority of the code in Cash App’s Android application is written in Java. This is due to the language’s device versatility and out-of-the-box security features, both of which are critical when working with bank accounts. Its non-use of references, Bytecode, and access control functionality are among them.
Signal
Along with WhatsApp and IMO, Signal is one of the most popular encrypted messaging applications. Java was used to create the cross-platform service’s extremely successful Android version, which has been dubbed “the most secure, privacy-centric messaging program ever developed.”
The founders most likely chose Java because of its popularity among Android developers and its extensive set of built-in security features, including as class declarations, organized error handling, and code reuse.
To protect discussions from prying eyes, the company uses phone numbers as usernames and employs end-to-end encryption. To protect all talks from hackers, the company employs a combination of the Double Ratchet Algorithm, Triple Diffie-Hellman handshake, and pre keys.
Signal recently acquired a $50 million investment from the founder of the company’s biggest rival, WhatsApp, as a result of its popular iOS and Android applications. The money was contributed “to pioneer a new kind of technology nonprofit focused on privacy and data protection for everyone, everywhere,” according to Brian Acton.
Looking Ahead
Since the OS’s inception in October 2003, Java has dominated the Android mobile app industry. The language has been praised for its ease of use and flexibility, as well as the fact that it is familiar to a large number of software professionals.Java’s supremacy, however, may be waning in the near future. Google, which owns and maintains Android, has announced Kotlin as a new official programming language for the platform, and the language is already making ripples in the Android developer community.
Evernote, Pinterest, and Uber are among the organizations that have made the language their favorite Android development platform. Over the last two years, this has resulted in quite significant growth in market share. Kotlin is now used in around 7.18 percent of current Android apps and 14.03 percent of new Android app development.
Kotlin is popular among developers because it is totally compatible with Java. This means that developers may create Kotlin code that will be converted to Java code. In comparison to Java, it also removed the null reference exception, resulting in fewer program crashes.
Because of the way classes are written, Kotlin-built apps have a faster performance speed than Java-built apps. Finally, compared to Java, Kotlin provides more powerful and diverse integrated development environments, allowing developers to produce more understandable and clean code.
In conclusion
The Java programming language is still the most popular language for developing Android apps, as well as one of the most popular languages for general software engineering.
Java programmers use the language to create Android apps because it allows them to build easy code that runs on a variety of mobile devices. Furthermore, the Android operating system is written in Java, and many of the APIs are tailored to the language.
As a result, the vast majority of the world’s most powerful corporations continue to write Java code for their Android development projects. Spotify, Twitter, Cash App, and Signal are just a few of the companies that employ the language in their extremely successful Android apps.
As more programmers choose Kotlin over Java, the mobile-specific programming language will continue to gain popularity in the Android app development market. Keep an eye out for potential Java enhancements that could help the language maintain its dominance in the Android development environment.
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