Posts From Zachary Wander

Zachary Wander
Zachary Wander

I write articles and develop apps for XDA. I'm also the developer of SystemUI Tuner. Yes, I'm bad at writing self-descriptions. Check me out on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wander1236.

Google unveils loads of new Firebase features to streamline app development

Google unveils loads of new Firebase features to streamline app development

May 18, 2021
Google I/O kicked off earlier today, and at the big Developer Keynote, we're getting a lot of Android development-related news. There have been changes to Flutter, new features in Jetpack, and, if the title of this article didn't tip you off, new things in Firebase. In case you don't know, Firebase is Google's cloud-based app tooling...
Flutter 2.2 announced at Google I/O 2021 with new features for app development

Flutter 2.2 announced at Google I/O 2021 with new features for app development

May 18, 2021
Google I/O is happening right now, and that means, of course, there's a bunch of new Android development news! If you're reading this post, then that means Google has just (or already) announced Flutter 2.2, a new version of their cross-platform app development framework. Flutter Adoption Stats There's actually quite a bit of new stuff for a...
Google unveils new features for Android Jetpack, Android Studio, and Kotlin at Google I/O 2021

Google unveils new features for Android Jetpack, Android Studio, and Kotlin at Google I/O 2021

May 18, 2021
We're now well into the Google I/O 2021 developer conference, and so we're seeing a bunch of developer-centric news for all of Google's development products. On top of changes to Flutter and Firebase, we've also got some new features for native Android development, including announcements about Android Jetpack, Android Studio, and even Kotlin. Jetpack Compose Jetpack Compose...
How to install apps for Android Auto that Google hasn’t approved

How to install apps for Android Auto that Google hasn’t approved

May 7, 2021
Android Auto is a great service. In compatible cars, you can plug your phone in and get instant access to music, radio, navigation, and more. But it's a pretty closed ecosystem. Only apps that Google approves can officially be used. The official reason for this is for safety. Google doesn't want people watching videos while...
Jetpack Compose for Web enters preview as a new UI framework for web development

Jetpack Compose for Web enters preview as a new UI framework for web development

May 6, 2021
In the past few years, there's been a pretty big push for cross-platform program development. Frameworks like React and Flutter were created to allow developers to share a single codebase across Android, iOS, desktop, and even the web. Even JetBrains, the company behind some of the most popular IDEs and the Kotlin programming language, has...
Android Studio Canary adds initial support for Apple’s new M1 Macs

Android Studio Canary adds initial support for Apple’s new M1 Macs

April 29, 2021
Besides the web, Android is probably one of the most accessible development platforms. Physical Android devices can be incredibly cheap, and there's no shortage of emulator options for testing. And of course, the actual IDE, Android Studio, works on almost every desktop platform in existence, including macOS. However, Android Studio has been missing something: ARM support....
You can now run Linux apps with GUIs on Windows 10 via WSL

You can now run Linux apps with GUIs on Windows 10 via WSL

April 22, 2021
Windows may be the most popular desktop OS, but that doesn't mean it can do everything. If you want to do something like run a JetBrains Projector server, for instance, you're going to need a Unix-based system, like Linux. Microsoft introduced Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) a while back, which brought support for running Linux...
Samsung Firmware Downloader is a free cross-platform tool to download software updates for Galaxy devices

Samsung Firmware Downloader is a free cross-platform tool to download software updates for Galaxy devices

March 13, 2021
There are a lot of reasons to manually download firmware for your device. Maybe you're trying to root it and need to modify the stock firmware before flashing it. Or maybe you just want to download software updates early. Unfortunately, companies don't often make it easy to actually download that firmware in an easily-installable way. The...
How to code in Android Studio from any device with JetBrains Projector

How to code in Android Studio from any device with JetBrains Projector

March 7, 2021
JetBrains is the company behind some of the most popular IDEs, including IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, and PhpStorm. Even Android Studio, Google's sort-of in-house IDE for Android development, is based on IntelliJ. While IntelliJ's IDEs are popular for a reason (they're good), they can be a little heavy at times. IntelliJ and Android Studio can take up a...
Dart 2.12 has been released, with null-safety and C interoperability

Dart 2.12 has been released, with null-safety and C interoperability

March 3, 2021
With the release of Flutter 2.0, Google is also bringing Dart 2.12 to stable. In case you didn't know, Dart is the language that Flutter uses. It's a TypeScript-based language but comes with some language feature additions, including the ones I'm about to go over. Null Safety Null safety is a pretty great language feature. It forces...
Flutter 2.0 reaches stable and adds support for foldable and dual-screen devices

Flutter 2.0 reaches stable and adds support for foldable and dual-screen devices

March 3, 2021
It's March 3rd, and Flutter 2.0 is here! There are a whole bunch of changes in this version compared to Flutter 1, and this article is going to focus on what changed for the desktop and mobile versions. Desktop For a while now, Flutter for Desktop has been in an alpha stage, which meant changing APIs, bugs,...
Flutter 2.0 introduces production-quality support for building web apps

Flutter 2.0 introduces production-quality support for building web apps

March 3, 2021
Flutter 2.0 has been released to stable, and with it, there is stable web support. This means that Flutter is now safe to use in production-quality web projects. With that said, let's see what Flutter for Web entails. Renderers There are two ways Flutter for Web can display your app in a browser. It can either render it...