Published in ProAndroidDev·Mar 8Android Security: Enabling Certificate Transparency checks in WebViewsWhen I first released my open-source certificate transparency library for Android and the JVM, I provided mechanisms to cover the majority of network connections, namely OkHttp, HttpURLConnection and Volley. However, there was no support for Android WebViews. If you want to learn more about certificate transparency, read Android Security: Certificate…Android Security4 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Nov 4, 2021Android 12 — a cautionary tale of formattersWhen the final Android 12 beta came out on the 8th September, I didn’t think much about it. When previously running the app I’m working on in earlier betas, I haven’t found too many problems. Except this time, we were in September. September is the start of Autumn, but why…Android3 min read
Oct 11, 2021Hacktoberfest 2021 — Week 1As an Android developer, open-source software underpins everything I do. So it only seems fair I commit personal time in October (and throughout the rest of the year) to the open-source community. For the last few years, I’ve taken part in Hacktoberfest as it helps me focus on my open-source…Hacktoberfest3 min read
Published in ProAndroidDev·Sep 18, 2021Lift on scroll in Jetpack ComposeMaterial Design has always specified that top app bars can be positioned at the same elevation as content until that content scrolls, with Material Components for Android providing the app:liftOnScroll attribute.Android2 min read
Sep 10, 2021Android Studio tip — Exclude unwanted importsThe auto-import functionality of Android Studio is often cluttered, presenting the user with imports for deprecated classes. For example, even though junit.framework.Assert is deprecated, the IDE still provides it as a choice when auto-importing and auto-completing on assertEquals:Android App Development2 min read
Aug 4, 2021Top Android MVI libraries in 2021When I think about MVI, the process boils down to three key concepts: A unidirectional cycle of data — i.e. data flows in one direction Processing of intents is non-blocking The state is immutable — outside of the Model (typically a ViewModel on Android) Conceptually MVI is not complicated, so…Android15 min read
Published in ProAndroidDev·Aug 7, 2020Testing Jetpack Security with RobolectricWhen updating my Android caching library, layercache, with built-in support for the new Jetpack SecurityEncryptedSharedPreferences I started to write unit tests using Robolectric, but soon came across the exception java.security.KeyStoreException: AndroidKeyStore not found. Usually, shadows come to mind when faced with issues like this, but in this article, we will…Android4 min read
Aug 2, 2019Testing Parcelable and Serializable classesIt’s hard to write an app in Android without coming across the need to serialise data using either Parcelable or Serializable. …Android6 min read
Published in ProAndroidDev·Jul 5, 2019The technical choices I make to build great Android apps. Part 3 — ArchitectureThis 3-part mini-series talks a little bit about the technical choices I make when building an app, specifically an A-Z app, to go at least some of the way to describe some aspects of what makes a (technically) great app. UI Code quality Architecture Architecture It doesn’t matter whether you use…Android5 min read
May 20, 2019Android Security: Certificate TransparencyTo protect our apps from man-in-the-middle attacks one of the first things that usually springs to mind is certificate pinning. Indeed, in early 2017 I published an article that discusses implementing SSL Pinning on Android. At the time little did I know that in late 2017 Google were to announce…Security8 min read
