Part 6. Resources

The capabilities and functionality of mobile devices continue to grow, but there will always be limits on what can fit inside a device and what people are willing to pay for. The resources available on a device are dependent upon the hardware and connected services. Both can vary between devices, operating systems, and carriers. Allowing your app to support variations in available resources enables it to work and provide good experiences on more devices.

In addition to whether the app uses resources, how it uses them can also have a big impact on a person’s experience with your app and their device in general. Resources on a mobile device are finite. If you allow your app to consume them all, it can affect other apps, as well as your own.

The final chapter looks at how to approach the use of resources in your app in a way that will not only give you the greatest benefit from their use, but at a minimal cost to the person using the app, and with the least impact on the other apps on the device.