WIA2007

MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION TO ANDROID:
THE MOBILE OS, COMPONENTS AND FLOW
Created by S. Ong
Adapted by Chiew TK
Semester 1, 2024/2025

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REMINDER

Attendance matters!

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MOBILE OS
SOME REVISIONS ON PREVIOUS TOPIC

• Software runs on top of mobile device to provide

functionalities to the mobile users.
• Types of Mobile OS? BlackBerry OS
(Research in Motion)
Bada
Android (Samsung)
(Google)
HarmonyOS
iOS (Huawei)
(Apple)
Windows OS
(Windows Mobile)
And more…
Meego OS
What else?
(Nokia + Intel)

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TYPES OF MOBILE APP

DEVELOPMENT
• 3 types of Mobile App Development:

Mobile Native Hybrid

Web App App App

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ANDROID APP FUNDAMENTAL

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ANDROID APP
INTRODUCTION

• Can be written using Java, Kotlin or

C++.
• Android SDK compiles all your
mobile app codes into single
Android Packages, .apk, for
download and installation
purposes.
• Google Play started requiring new
apps to be published with the
Android App Bundle (AAB) from
August 2021, replacing the Android
Application Package (APK) as the
standard publishing format.

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ANDROID APP
INTRODUCTION
• Each installed android app is
contained inside a security
sandbox, which provide following
functionalities:
• Android OS is in multi-user
environment – each app is a single
user.
• System assigns app with unique
user ID for control access purposes.
• Each app runs in its own Linux
process.
• Each process runs independently
inside its own VM.
* Sandbox : security mechanism to run various running program separately.
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ANDROID APP
WITHOUT SANDBOX

Unrestricted
All user access
data
Apps
All system
resources

* Sandbox : security mechanism to run various running program separately.

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ANDROID APP
WITH SANDBOX MECHANISM
Sandbox
Unrestricted
Other App user access
user data data
No access
Apps
Other App
system system
resources resources

* Sandbox : security mechanism to run various running program separately.

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

• Essential building blocks of Android App
• Entry point where user / system can access the App
• Four different components:
a. Activities
b. Services Some
components
c. Broadcast Receivers depend on others.
d. Content Providers
• Each component serves different purposes and have
different lifecycle (i.e., how it is created and killed)

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

ACTIVITIES
• Entry point to interact with user
• One Activity = Single screen with user interface
• E.g., Email App:
• Activity to show list of emails Works together to provide
cohesive user experience,
• Activity to compose email
yet it’s independent from
• Activity to read email each other.

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

ACTIVITIES
• Facilitates key interaction between system and app,
e.g.:
✔Keep track of what currently user cares about (i.e., on
screen) to ensure the process keeps running.
✔Help app on handling killed process so that previous
activity can be restored to previous state if being access
again.
✔Prioritize which processes that users might return.
✔Provide apps to implement user flows and for system to
coordinate them.

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

ACTIVITIES
• Activity class provides a number of callbacks that allow
the activity to know that a state has changed.
• That the system is creating / stopping / resuming an
activity / destroying process in which activity resides.
• In callback methods, we can declare how our activity
behaves when the user leaves and re-enters the
activity.
• E.g., Video streaming app (pausing + disconnect
network)

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

ACTIVITIES
• Doing the right work at the right time and handling
transitions properly make your app more robust and
perform better:
• Avoid crashing if user switch off the screen / switch to
other apps / change orientation.
• Save valuable system resources when it’s inactive
• Save states / users’ progress when they leave app and
come back later
• And others.

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ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
ONCREATE()
▪ Fires when system first creates the
activity
▪ Perform basic startup logic that
should happened only once for the
entire life of the activity
▪ E.g., bind data to a list, instantiate
some class-scope variables
▪ After onCreate() method finishes its
execution, the activity enters Started
state, system calls
▪ OnStart()
▪ OnResume() in quick succession
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ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
ONSTART()
▪ Makes the activity visible to user
▪ App prepares for the activity to
enter the foreground and become
interactive
▪ E.g., initialize code that maintains
the UI
▪ Once the callback finishes, it enters
Resumed state
▪ System invokes onResume()
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ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
ONRESUME()
▪ State where the app interacts with
the user
▪ Stays in this state until something
happens to take focus away from
the app
▪ E.g., receiving phone call, user
navigates away to another app,
device’s screen turns off.
▪ When interruptive event occurs,
activity enters Paused state.
▪ System invokes onPause()
▪ If activity returns from Paused state,
system once again calls onResume()
▪ Should implement onResume() to
initialize components that release
during onPause()
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ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
ONPAUSE()
▪ System calls this method as the first
indication that user is leaving your
activity.
▪ Activity no longer in foreground
▪ Use onPause() to pause or adjust
operations that should not be
continued.
▪ onPause() execution is very brief
and does not necessarily afford
enough time to perform save
operation – may not complete
before method finishes.
▪ Remain until activity resume or
become completely invisible to user
▪ System calls onStop()
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ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
ONSTOP()
▪ No longer visible to user
▪ Entered Stopped state
▪ E.g., newly launched activity covers
entire screen / activity finishes,
system calls onStop()
▪ Release resources
▪ Perform CPU-intensive shutdown
operation
▪ Can also used to save information to
database
▪ Activity comes back interact with
user – calls onRestart(), OR
completely go away – calls
onDestroy()
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ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
ONDESTROY()
▪ Called before activity is destroyed
▪ Activity finishing
▪ System temporarily destroying the
activity due to configuration
changes (e.g., multi-window view)
▪ Clean up procedures before it is
destroyed
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ACTIVITY LIFECYCLE
ONRESTART()
▪ Invoked when an activity currently
reside Stopped state is about the
restart.
▪ Restore the state of activity when it
was stopped.
▪ Usually followed by onStart()
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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

ACTIVITIES
Quick Question 1:
• Which of the following is FALSE about android app
in sandbox environment:
A. Each android app is a user with unique identifier.
B. Each android app runs within its own virtual machine.
C. Each android app can interrupt other user's process
when error occurs.
D. Each android app can access to other user's data with
special permission.

Answer your question in the designated conversation in

Microsoft Team Post tab under General Channel.

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

ACTIVITIES
• Thinking Question – Do we need to implement ALL
lifecycle methods?

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

SERVICES
• General purpose entry point
• Keep the app running in background
• Perform long-running operation
• Perform work for remote process
• No user interface
• E.g., while user is interacting with other activity…
• Play music – example of user-aware services
• Fetch data over network -- example of less user-aware
services (can be killed if too many RAM is used)

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

SERVICES
• Two distinct types of service:
• User is directly aware of: app tells the system by saying it
wants to be in foreground with a notification to tell user
about it – system knows that it should try very hard to
keep it running
• User is NOT directly aware of: regular background service
that system has more freedom in managing it (e.g., killing
it, restarting it)
• Bound service: service A is needed to run service B
• Useful building block for all high-level system concepts,
e.g., Live Wallpaper, accessibility services, notification
listeners, etc.

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

BROADCAST RECEIVERS
• Enable the system to deliver the events to the app
OUTSIDE of a regular user flow.
• Allowing the app to response to system-wide
broadcast announcement
• Another well-defined entry to the app
• Can deliver broadcast to the app that are currently not
running.
• E.g., App scheduled alarm to notify user for upcoming
event…
• No need keep on running after delivering the alarm to
broadcast receivers

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

BROADCAST RECEIVERS
• E.g., announce battery low, data has been
downloaded, etc.
• Does not display full user interface, but may create
status bar notification.
• Normally acts just as gateway to other components
• Intended to do very minimal amount of work

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ANDROID APP COMPONENTS

CONTENT PROVIDERS
• Manages a shared set of app data that you can stored
in a file system / SQLite database / on web / any
persistent storage location.
• Other app can query or modify the data if content
provider allows it (security feature).
• Provide entry point into the app for publishing named
data items, identified by URI (uniform resource identifier)
scheme.

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ACTIVATING COMPONENT
VIA INTENT
• In Android system design, any app can start another
app’s component.
• E.g., taking photo using other app
• But because system runs each app in a separate
process with file permission that restrict access to other
apps, your app CANNOT directly activate a
component from another app.
• You need to use Android System. HOW?
• Deliver a message to the system that specifies your
INTENT to start a particular component, system will then
activate the component for you.

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ACTIVATING COMPONENT
VIA INTENT
• An asynchronous message utilized to activate activity,
service and broadcast receiver.
• Bind individual component to each other during
runtime.
• Act as messenger that request an action from other
components, whether the component is belong to your
app or not.
• Can choose to activate either specific component
(explicit intent) or specific type of component (implicit
intent)

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ACTIVATING COMPONENT
VIA INTENT
• For activity and service:
• Define action to perform (e.g., view, send, etc.)
• Specify the URI of data to act on
• E.g., issue intent to let user pick a personal contact and
return the URI of chosen contact.
• For broadcast receiver:
• Define the announcement being broadcast

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ACTIVATING COMPONENT
VIA CONTENT RESOLVER
• Handle all direct transactions with content provider
• Provide a layer of abstraction between content
provider and component requesting information (for
security purposes).

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METHODS TO ACTIVATE
COMPONENTS
• Start an activity
• Pass an Intent object to startActivity() or
startActivityForResult()
• Start a service
• Pass an Intent object to startService()
• Initiate broadcast
• Pass an Intent object to sendBroadcast() /
sendOrderedBroadcast() / sentStickyBroadcast()
• Query to content provider
• Call query() on ContentResolver object.

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METHODS TO ACTIVATE
COMPONENTS
• Quick Question 2: Which of the following is NOT a
component in Android App?
A. Broadcast provider
B. Activity
C. Services
D. Content provider

Answer the question in Microsoft Team.

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THE MANIFEST FILE

• By reading the app’s manifest file (where is it?):
• System has to know the existence of components in your
app
• Place to declare all the components
• Identify any user permissions needed (e.g., read access
to user’s contact)
• Declare minimum API required (i.e., 1 to 33)
• Declare hardware and software feature used or needed
(e.g., camera, Bluetooth, etc.)
• Declare API libraries that need to be linked (other than
Android framework’s API) (e.g., Google Maps library)

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THE MANIFEST FILE

DECLARING COMPONENTS

• Primary task of manifest file, e.g.,:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest ... >
<application android:icon="@drawable/app_icon.png" ... >
<activity android:name="com.example.project.ExampleActivity"
android:label="@string/example_label" ... >
</activity>
...
</application>
</manifest>

• MUST declare all app components using following

elements:
• <activity>, <service>, <receiver>, <provider>
• If no declaration – not visible to the system and can
never run.
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THE MANIFEST FILE

DECLARING COMPONENTS

• Other elements:
• <uses-feature> - hardware and software needed
• <uses-sdk> - API used
• <uses-library> - other libraries needed to be linked
• <uses-configuration> - specific input features required
• <uses-permission> - system permission needed to be
granted
• And others…

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THE MANIFEST FILE

DECLARING COMPONENTS CAPABILITIES
• Include <intent-filter> element that declares the
capabilities of the activity (optional)
• So that it can respond to intents from other app
• E.g., if build email app with an activity to compose
email , we can declare an intent-filter to respond to
“send” intent (in order to send a new email):
<manifest ... >
...
If another app creates
<application ... >
<activity android:name="com.example.project.ComposeEmailActivity"> an intent with
<intent-filter> the ACTION_SEND acti
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND" /> on and passes it
<data android:type="*/*" /> to startActivity(), the
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" /> system may start your
</intent-filter>
activity so the user
</activity>
</application> can draft and send
</manifest> an email.
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THE MANIFEST FILE

DECLARING COMPONENTS CAPABILITIES
• Declare device and software requirements
• Google Play reads them and filter depending on user’s
devices capabilities.
• E.g., if an app requires a camera and Android 2.1 (API
level 7):
<manifest ... > With such declaration,
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.any" devices with NO
android:required="true" />
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="7" android:targetSdkVersion="19" />
camera or have
... Android version lower
</manifest> than 2.1 cannot install
your app from Google
Play.

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APP RESOURCES
• Android App needs more than code!
• Images, Audio, etc. that visualize the content
• XML files to define style, animation, colours and layout
• Alternative resources to define various languages and
device sizes

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APP RESOURCES
• SDK build tools define unique integer ID for every
resources in the app
• E.g., if your app contains logo.png (saved in
res/drawable/ directory), SDK will generate a resource ID
named R.drawable.logo
• Can be used to reference the image and insert into the
UI of the app
• Define string translations to other languages that stored
in separate files, e.g., res / values-fr, for French
translation.
• Or use it to define the layout when different orientation
is in-used – the qualifier that define different device
configurations.

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ASSIGNMENT
• Anyone else still looking for group?

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