Life Cycle Implementation of an Android Application for Self-Communication with Increasing Efficiency, Storage Space and High Performance

Transcription

1 Life Cycle Implementation of an Android Application for Self-Communication with Increasing Efficiency, Storage Space and High Performance Md. Alamgir Kabir, A.J.M. Imtiajur Rahman and Md. Ismail Jabiullah Department of Software Engineering, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Abstract Android is a Linux-based platform for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. Android delivers a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. In this paper, some of the phases of the system development life cycle have been implemented on android application and analyze the result of testing for efficiency, storage space and performance of the application. Keywords: smartphone, Linux Kernel, SDLC, Life Cycle and Android.. I. INTRODUCTION Android is an operating system that includes middleware and key applications. Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto of California, U.S. by Andy Rubin, Rich miner, Nick sears and Chris White in 2003 [2]. Later Android Inc. was acquired by Google in After original release there have been number of updates in the original version of Android. There has been big barrier of broad scope of embedded devices software especially if we talk about the operating systems of embedded devices. Still abundantly used embedded device like mobile phones are still living on proprietary operating systems, to work on those systems developers have to pay heavy price to purchase development environment and build-linker-debugging tools. This leads to slow development in overall mobile development field, since lots of homebrew developers unable to put their research and development knowledge. This barrier to application development began to crumble in November of 2007 when Google, under the Open Handset Alliance, released Android [1]. The Open Handset Alliance is a group of hardware and software developers, including Google, NTT DoCoMo, Sprint Nextel, and HTC, whose goal is to create a more open cell phone environment. The first product to be released under the alliance is the mobile device operating system, Android. Android is what s known as open source and, to a large degree, that means that its inner workings and machinations are free to for the public to access, view and even tinker with. Android will ship with a set of core applications including an client, SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are written using the Java programming language. Android was built to be truly open. For example, an application can call upon any of the phone s core functionality such as making calls, sending text messages, or using the camera, allowing developers to create richer and more cohesive experiences for users. Android is built on the open Linux Kernel. Furthermore, it utilizes a custom virtual machine that was designed to optimize memory and hardware resources in a mobile environment. Android provides access to a wide range of useful libraries and tools that can be used to build rich applications. For example, Android enables developers to obtain the location of the device, and allows devices to communicate with one another enabling rich peer to peer social applications. In this paper, life cycle phase of the system development life cycle (SDLC) has been implemented. This approach imposes better efficiency, increases performances in storage capacity and show high performances in the self communication environment. II. CONVENTIONAL APPROACH [3] Android allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries. Applications written in C and other languages can be compiled to ARM native code and run, but this development path isn't officially supported by Google. Android is available as open source. 35

2 A. Application Lifecycle In Android, the applications are run as a separate Linux process. So the application lifecycle is closely related to the process lifecycle. The application process lifecycle is handled by the system depending on the current system memory state (Fig. 1). In case of low memory, the Android system kills some less important process. The process importance is decided depending on the state of the process components. The process types depending on the importance are as follows, from most important to least important. 1) Foreground process A process is the application process with which the user is currently interacting. The process is considered to be if its Activity is at the top of the Activity stack (its onresume() has been called) or BroadcastReceiver is currently running (onreceive() method is currently getting executed) or its Service is executing callback functions like oncreate(), onstart() or ondestroy() methods. 2) Visible Process: A visible process is the process which has an Activity visible to the user (its onpause() method has been called). Service Process: Service process contains a Service for which startservice method is called and the service is running. Background Process: The background process does not have any visible activities to the user. (Activity onstop() method has been called). Empty Process: Empty process is the one that does not have any active application components. These processes are kept on for caching purpose. It is important that application developers understand lifecycle of the application process. Not using these correctly can result in the system killing the application s process while it is doing important work. In this time, if one wants to visible this app in the, he/she needs more memory and more time. When another app or activity comes into the, the recent activity goes to the background. It is the life cycle of an android application. III. PROPOSED SYSTEM Unlike the existing system approach, the proposed system is multi-application integration. Integration is very much needed for reducing time and increasing efficiency and saving storage space (Fig. 2). For this purpose we need some valuables applications which will be integrated. The applications could be (a) Browser, (b) An template, (c) Music player, etc. A. Diagrammatic Approach This system has been developed using prototype design or step-by-step application by application methodology. 1) Flow Diagram: Integrated apps MAI Android is main interface. When we will click MAI interface then all application will start. Every application is separate class and integrated in main interface. So, all application will run in one click. Then, we can switch one app to another app (Fig. 3). Figure 1. Android Application Life Cycle 2) Logical Diagram: Splah.java is start class and Menu.java is main class which has integrated all applications. Menu.java contains all applications which are necessary. If any application is needed then we will add in Menu.java class. In Menu.java class 36

3 contains all application and we can switch one app to another app (Fig. 4). App Now we are in OnCreate () Now we are in OnStart () Now we are in OnResume () Non Integrated Apps Platform App 1 Pause Activity Launche d Now we are in OnPause () Now we are in OnStop () Another app comes into the App activity stops and destroys by the system Fig. 2: Existing android application lifecycle implemented Figure 2. Existing Android Applications Table -1: Time Efficiency Measurement Application Individual Integrated Use Name Use Browser 4 seconds 4 seconds 3 seconds Integrated Time as the largest application requires Total Time 7 seconds ( 4+0) =4 seconds Integrated Apps Apps Now we are in OnCreate () Now we are in OnStart () Activity Launched Integrated apps launched is in OnCreate () Integrated apps is in the OnStart () Now we are in OnResume () Integrated Apps Platform Integrated apps launched as Another app comes into Now we are in OnPause () Figure 3. Step by Step Prototype All application pause together Now we are in OnStop () Apps activity stop and will destroy by the system Fig. 5: Proposed android application lifecycle implemented Figure 5. Proposed Android Application Lifecycle Figure 4. Logical Diagram for High Class Diagram B. Efficiency Measurement For integration approach, application will be more efficient and not need more time to access the necessary applications and application performance will be high. Detailed descriptions are given below: 1) Time Efficiency: Time efficiency for the android applications is given in Table 1(Approximate Values) Table 1 shows an approximate comparition between seperately used applications and integrated applications where it is clearly shown that the integrated application platform takes less time than the separatly used applications. As the integrated application platform takes less time than the separatly used application platform. So, it relases the memory early which is clearly shown in Fig. 3. and thus the processor can use the memory more effficiently. Here necessary application is integrated. So, all applications are in one application that means integrated application. For this, integrated application run at one time and integrate application remains all the activity cycle at one time so not need more memory and performance will be high and increasing efficiency. 37

4 2) Memory Efficiency: At first, Integrated apps are in OnCreate (). Then Integrated apps are in OnStart () then OnResume (). Now integrated apps are running together. For this time, we can switch on application to application because all applications are integrated (Fig. 5). For this extra memory is not needed. So, in integrated apps, memory is used more efficiently to switch one app to another app and performance will be increased. IV. IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH A. Requirement Issues Integration is very much needed for reducing time and increasing efficiency and saved storage space Need some valuable applications which will be integrated So some applications to be integrated whivh are very much necessary such as o Browser o An Template o Music Player etc. B. Data Collection : Table 2:Collected user requirements Name Requirement Need Responder 1 Integrated software which contain necessary software C. Analysis and Design Which is clearly described in section 3(Proposed SystemDiagram). D. Perormance Analysis (a)browser (b)need e- mail template which usable for all Responder 2 Reduce time abuse (a)browser (b) (c)calculat or (d)sms (e)mp3 Player Responder 3 Integrated software which contain necessary applications Necessary software Table 1 in section B shows an approximate comparition between seperately used applications and integrated applications where it is clearly shown that the integrated application platform takes less time than the separatly used applications. As the integrated application platform takes less time than the separatly used application platform. So, it relases the memory early which is clearly shown in figure-3 of section 2 and thus the processor can use the memory more effficiently. Here necessary applications are integrated. So, all applications are in one application that means integrated application. For this, integrated application run at one time and integrate application remains all the activity cycle at one time so not need more memory and performance will be high and increasing efficiency. E. Testing for Proposed Android Environment The proposed system passed the time efficiency test(ref. table1 of section : B). Browser Test: Integrated browser is successful. Android 1.6 browser are supported by flash. But integrated browser is fully support for Android 1.6 to Android 4.03 because integrated app s build in target 1.6 to For this, Android 1.6 user can use this integrated app. V. CONCLUSION World is contracting with the growth of mobile phone technology. In recent days, Android is the most popular operating system for all cell phone. Multi-application integration approach for android environment increases the efficiency,save storage space by this way provide high performance which is the ultimate goal of the system. Figure 6. Browser Test 38

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