Thanks to the smartphone revolution of the last decade, app stores on both iOS and Android have become central to how people interact with their devices and utilise them. Every single major function performed on a phone makes use of an app, be it for social media, maps or listening to music. As a result, the scope for app development has been ever-changing over the years and extends into all spheres of entertainment, including into bingo.
It’s worth discussing at this point that you can play online bingo on this website, an offering that acts a useful case study in understanding how bingo games work in the online sphere. When it comes to the software available to make such games work, there are two options currently available. Some providers make usage of a downloadable client in which it’s then possible to play the bingo games from the desktop. More commonly however on online casino websites is the option for instant-play software. These give players access to the respective providers’ software within the browser as a result of its integration within the webpage. To achieve this, providers would use the tech that HTML5 has bequeathed onto developers in order to make bingo games like the ones that Paddy Power provide both good-looking and easy to access.
When it comes to designing an app for Android specifically, most things are written in Javascript or Kotlin which are the operating system’s official languages, although other popular programming languages such as C++ and C#;are also supported. The Android Software Development Kit, or SDK for short, includes a whole host of tools including a debugger and a handset emulator that allows developers to test out their apps as if they were on phones. Associated compatibility for this SDK is also good, as it can work on Windows, MacOS and any computers running either flat Linux or any modern distro such as Ubuntu or Manjaro. It isn’t possible to run the SDK on Android itself but software development can be used by making use of specialised applications on Android that can mimic the SDK in some ways.
However, even if developers do things by the book by using the SDK and properly supported programming languages, Android apps don’t come without their issues. The issue of fragmentation used to be a pain for developers to sort as a result of them having to consider different screen sizes and resolutions to make sure that the app is optimised for each individual device. Fragmentation isn’t just an issue for screen size, however. It’s also a case of making sure an app runs on every conceivable modern version of Android and making sure it’s compatible as not every user will update their device immediately when a new version of the operating system releases. Some will stick with what they know as opposed to updates because the act of updating multiple devices can of course be time-consuming.
Given the way the Internet and mobile devices are, it should come as little surprise that developers, for bingo games and others, have multiple different avenues that they can venture down. For web development, there’s only one path that seems to be viable whereas with actual app development, there’s even greater potential for developers curating the best applications possible.
