Turbocharge Android App’s Performance with Proven Strategies

Do you know this jaw-dropping stat from Google? Among a whooping 3 billion Android users, 70% hit the uninstall button for slow-loading apps. Astonishing fact, right? We also think so. The fierce competition to stay at the top compels developers to master app optimization best practices. With strategic interventions, developers can craft top-notch Android apps with the perfect balance of functionality, leading to seamless Android app development.

Our blog enlightens you with the most effective strategies to optimize your Android app’s performance, providing a smooth user experience across a diverse Android landscape. Happy reading!

Why Should Businesses Prefer App Optimization for Android App Development?

Optimized Android apps can drive business growth with enhanced user experience, engagement, and revenue. If any app takes a long time to download or perform slowly, users might abandon it. This can lead to user retention loss and revenue loss from subscription fees, in-app purchases, etc. So, optimizing Android apps is essential for improved app performance. 

The best mitigation approach is hiring a dedicated Android developer for performance optimization. Let’s have a glimpse at why businesses should prefer app optimization.

• Customer Satisfaction: You must ensure user satisfaction. When the apps run fast and reliably, customer satisfaction is guaranteed, which leads to improved customer engagement, loyalty, and repeat clients. 
• Build Brand Reputation: A well-performing Android app can help build brand recognition and reputation. This happens because any business that delivers top-notch apps has a positive impact. 
• Boosted App Store Visibility: Play Store considers multiple factors while ranking an app. Improving your app’s performance boosts its chances of being discovered quickly, leading to organic downloads.
• Cost-efficient: A well-optimized app has fewer performance issues, which, of course, helps reduce support and maintenance costs, saving money and resources for any business.

Which Aspects Impact the Android App Performance Most?

Developers must prioritize performance optimization to stand out in the competitive Android app development landscape. For that, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) work like magic, assisting in understanding the effectiveness of the app’s performance optimization efforts. How? 

Well, you can track and analyze these KPIs to retrieve valuable business insights on the app’s performance. This enables them to make data-driven decisions to amplify app performance and enrich the overall user experience. So, the most important KPIs are noted down below. 

• App launching time: Measures the time the app requires to load and be usable after the launch. 
• Extensive memory usage: Monitors memory usage of your app to avoid crashes. 
• Battery consumption: Reflects the impact of your app on the user’s device battery, which can lead to a poor user experience. 
• Crash rate: Tracks the frequency of your app’s crashes, enabling you to fix bugs quickly. 

Moreover, network performance, screen rendering time, conversion and engagement metrics, and app size are also considered effective KPIs.

Strategies That Can Optimization Android App Performance

The increasing usage of Android apps is pushing developers to leverage app performance optimization best practices. This leads to improved overall app performance with boosted user experience. We’ve outlined the most effective techniques to maximize your Android app performance. Here’s how you can do that: 

#1 Reduce Your App Size

One of the first strategies to improve Android app performance is to reduce the app size. You know what? The larger the app size is, the more resources it requires to run smoothly. This can lead to performance issues. Users often abandon the idea of downloading any extensive app where storage and network bandwidth are a prevailing concern. In fact, Google has already shown how every 6 MB increase in the app size lowers 1% in the install conversion rate.

Source

How does the developer reduce the app size? 

• Use Android App Bundles: This is the latest upload format that comprises each resource and compiled code. It can delay APK development and sign to Google Play, allowing users to download the code and resources required to run your app and leading to minor updates.
• Android Size Analyzer: This effective app performance tool helps you choose and incorporate solutions to shrink app size. It can be found as an Android Studio plugin and a JAR (command line).

Install Android Size Analyzer as a plugin from the plugin marketplace. This will provide you with suggestions for improving app performance. Besides, using the tool as a command line lets you view the file size. 

Related Read : Architecture Patterns in Android App Development: MVC, MVP, MVVM

#2 Optimize Network

Optimizing network operations is another excellent solution for smooth app performance-enhancing app development. The thumb rule is always to prioritize text over images! This means you must load the textual data first, and image-based content should be in the second option. 

While handling network requests, your app will need internet or cellular data, which consumes battery and CPU resources, leading to delays and errors in the app.

So, what are the best practices for that? 

• Reduce Network Requests: You can minimize network request numbers by consolidating your data whenever possible. How? OptWell, opt for pagination and caching strategies to retrieve the needful data only. This can lower the bandwidth usage and speed up the app performance. 
• Optimize Network Requests: Leverage protocols and formats, like HTTP/2, gRPC, and Pprotobuf, to multiplex and parallel the requests, minimizing latency and unlocking network operation efficiency. 
• Monitor Network Performance: Monitor network performance frequently to identify and fix any issues with tools, such as Firebase Performance Monitoring, Network Profiler, and Charles Proxy.

#3 Optimize Images and Videos

Images work as the medium to improve the visual appeal and functionality of any app therefore, you must opt for captivating images or videos. However, this can impact the app’s performance if not properly optimized.

Best practices for image optimization are: 

• Use Proper Image Formats: Choose the image format that aligns with your app’s needs and requirements. For example, JPEG can be a good format option for photos, but opting for PNG can be the perfect format for icons and logos. Similarly, WebP is suitable for both images and icons as it is lightweight and supports better quality compared to JPEG and PNG. 
• Compress Images: Use tools like ImageOptim or TinyPNG to compress images without compromising their quality. You can also incorporate lazy loading, which enables images to load only when they appear on the screen.

Related Read: Guide 101:Material Design in Android App Development

#4 Reduce App Launch Time

Users prefer fast and responsive apps, and if an app takes too long to launch, it’s likely to receive negative reviews on Google Play. You surely don’t want that, right? A report by Google shows us that 70% of mobile app users reject any app that takes a long time to load. In fact, the prime 25 apps on Google Play hardly take 800 Ms to 4.5s to launch; however, in some cases, 4.5s is also too long for users. 

How can you speed up your app launch time? 

• Avoid unnecessary UI elements in your first app launch. 
• Synchronize the app with real-time data and the latest information to maintain top-quality usability. 
• Don’t prefer reflection as it is fragile and slow. 
• Leverage tools like Apteligent to monitor and improve app launch time. 

#5 Seamless Memory Management

Memory is used for data storage and running code on any device and comes with restricted and shared resources. If your app takes up too much space, it leads to issues such as slow performance, crashes, and out-of-memory. To improve your memory management, you can go with:

• Avoid Memory Leaks: Use tools like LeakCanary to identify and fix memory leaks caused by unnecessary references or inappropriately handled resources. 
• Data Structure Optimization: Opt for effective data structures to reduce memory usage. When using sparse data, you can select sparse arrays or maps. However, be attentive to memory implications when dealing with extensive data structures. 
• Monitor Memory Usage: Monitor and detect any memory-related issues in your app early to avoid slow app performance and customer dissatisfaction. 

Apart from these, you can implement the below-mentioned best practices as well: 

• Reduce external library usage
• Unregister your listeners and events for memory management
• Build memory-efficient codes only
• You can print logs on callback.

#6 Maintain Battery Efficiency

Battery efficiency is paramount for balancing your app performance and seamless app development. Let’s check how you can manage battery efficiency in your app: 

• Minimize Background Process: Reduce background processes to preserve battery life. To do this, you can first identify and restrict non-essential background tasks to extend battery life. Then, to handle periodic tasks efficiently without draining your device’s battery, you can leverage JobIntentService or WorkManager. 
• Utilize Wake Locks and Alarms: You must judiciously use wake locks and alarms in your device. This prevents the device from entering low-power states, which can influence battery performance.

Additionally, you can use the Android Battery Historian tool to monitor and analyze app-specific battery usage and identify areas for improvement.

#7 Continuously Monitor App Performance 

Monitoring your performance is crucial to ensure your app runs seamlessly and meets user expectations. You can use dynamic metrics and tools for that. 

• Android Vitals: You can utilize this dashboard to understand your app’s performance on real devices and improve app quality and user experience. 
• Firebase Performance Monitoring: This can be used to identify and fix performance issues and track the impact of optimization. 
• Android Studio Profiles: Leverage this tool to optimize and inspect the app performance in real-time to fix and find performance issues.

Related Read: Pro Tips for Optimal Performance in iOS App Development

#8 Test and Profile the App

Testing and profiling the app are absolutely essential to optimize performance. Conducting dynamic performance testing is crucial to identifying bottlenecks and understanding app response times. 

So, how can you do that? 

• Automated Testing: Incorporate robust automated testing, including unit and UI tests. Ongoing testing aids identify performance regressions early in the development process. 
• Performance Profiling: Profile your app performance often with tools, including Android Profiler or third-party tools. This improves performance-related issues quickly and provides users with a seamless app experience.

More Exclusive Tips

Apart from these most effective tips to improve your Android app performance, you can also opt for the below-mentioned app performance-boosting tips: 

• Utilize background threads for long-running tasks
• Optimize your app across multiple Android versions
• Write concise and efficient codes
• Optimize the offline model for the app
• Optimize your app’s screen size
• Identify latency killer 

Navigate Through Your Android App Development with Magicminds!

In a nutshell, mobile app performance optimization is essential for businesses to succeed. With the above-mentioned expert tips, companies can improve their Android app’s performance, app responsiveness, use engagement, and customer retention with supercharged conversion rates. If you need expert help optimizing your app’s performance, you can contact us at Magicminds. Our dedicated developers are eager to deliver your users with exceptional experience and increased engagement, which ultimately, should maximize your bottom line. So, what’re you waiting for? Share Your Project Requirements!