Question

I want to build a social network app for Android.
But, I don’t know where to start. I tried to search in http://developer.android.com and many other tutorials. But, I didn’t understand in data storage.
In web development (PHP) for example, we need server and database (MySQL).
How about the android app?
I need to know the concept in developing social network app for Android,
such as to store users’ posts, comments, uploaded photos, google map data and so on.
I don’t want the code, I’m asking for idea and concept in developing social network app for Android.

Any links to the suitable sites for me to start would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use file-storage (sd-card), preferences (for settings and such) or SQLLIte for storage on an Android phone. But if it is an actually social app, I suspect you want users to be able to interact. Therefore, equivalent with php and mysql, your users might use their browser (phone in this case) to use the app, but they use your server to store the data (friends, likes, retweets, whathaveyous).

So what you need to do for this to work is

• Make a server just like “normal” where you store the data. I suggest MySQL as you seem to know how that works
• Make an API to add data to that server. I suggest a RESTfull API in PHP, again as you seem to know how that works
• Write your app. Whenever you want to interact (for instance “like” a post) you send a request trough the API and that saves your action to the database.
• Your other users can see that like because their phones get their info trough the API form the same database.

Now the settings (how many times does the app check for new messages) are saved in a preferences file (you can find that on the developer pages), and some extra things might be saved on the sd-card (images etc).

So the APP part is quite easy, and no problem to figure out using the manual, the SOCIAL part you need to do what I described above. Yes this is some work, but there is enough written about php-mysql interaction using an app.