MobilePro #81: Android development considerations, Low-code development visual and  ChatGPT resources.

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside! March 25, 2023 Hi {NAME}, Welcome to the mobile app development world with [_mobilepro 81]( Today we talk about [c]( your first Discord bot using TypeScript]( [Jetpack Compose release]( and our featured ChatGPT resources covering API tools, Applications, DevOps and CLI tools! Want to try your hand at Low-Code development? Our Low-code Infographic answers all your questions including who can build with it, why use low-code, customizable UI environments, and some examples. We take you through a [reverse engineering tutorial]( to help protect your apps. We have listened to the [_mobilepro]( readership and we think this is something you have been searching for. If you liked this installment in our new series, fill in our survey below. We're committed to bringing our readers exactly what they want, so help us make the right choices! [Take the Survey!]( Thanks, Apurva Kadam Associate Editor-in-Chief, Packt Mobile Developer Community Insights - [Creating your first Discord bot using TypeScript]( - Discord is a popular platform for communication among gamers and communities. One of the key features of Discord is its ability to host bots, which can automate tasks and provide helpful services for users. In this tutorial, you will go through the steps of creating your first Discord bot using TypeScript. [Read more.]( - [10 Best Practices for Ecommerce Checkout Design]( - Optimizing your ecommerce checkout process is crucial to reduce cart abandonment rates, as it affects customer satisfaction and the likelihood of returns. If the checkout process is not smooth and simple, the customers may [abandon their carts]( without making a purchase and may not return to your app. This article shares the best practices for optimizing your checkout process and boosting your sales. [Know more.]( - [Create a Pull Request from Visual Studio Code]( - We are used to the GitHub User Interface so we usually navigate to GitHub, then search for our repository and then click the button to create a Pull Request. But did you know that you can do all of this from Visual Studio Code? In this article, we'll see how to create a Pull Request from Visual Studio Code in literally two clicks. [Learn how!]( - [10 Things to Consider For Android App Development!]( How do you ensure that your android application development is good enough? Avoiding common mistakes is a good start. This blog provides a framework for android development to ensure your app works without a glitch. [Read more.]( - [Comprehensive comparison of Web Apps, PWAs, SPAs, Hybrid Apps, and Native Apps]( - What are these terms and what do they mean? Each of these terms has a specific meaning and purpose, and understanding the differences between them can be important when deciding which type of application is best suited for a particular project. [Learn about them here.]( Reading from the UK or the US? Checkout our offers on [Amazon.com]( and [Amazon.co.uk]( Mobile Development Motivation "Low-code development is like the democratization of software development, it allows everyone to participate in the process of creating apps and enables businesses to innovate and grow faster than ever before." - Jason Bloomberg, President, Intellyx Food for Thought... ChatGPT and low-code development share the common goal of democratizing software development by making it more accessible to a wider range of people. They achieve this by simplifying the development process and reducing the need for extensive technical knowledge. ChatGPT's natural language processing capabilities enable developers to build chatbots and conversational interfaces without having to write complex code from scratch, while low-code development provides a visual interface and pre-built components to enable developers to create applications with less coding. Both approaches can empower more people to create innovative applications and help businesses to innovate and grow faster. ChatGPT Resources You Can't Miss! ChatGPT, a language model trained on GPT-3.5 architecture, can be a valuable tool in mobile app development by providing natural language processing, content generation, user behavior analysis, personalization, and language translation services. Here are some ChatGPT resources to help you get started: API Tools - [Unoffical API in Python]( - [TLS-based API (Python)]( - [Unofficial API in JS/TS]( - [Unofficial API in Dart]( - [ChatGPT (GPT-3.5-turbo) API Client in Golang]( Applications - [Adrenaline: Debugger that fixes errors and explains them with GPT-3]( - [ChatARKit: Using ChatGPT to Create AR Experiences with Natural Language]( - [GPT3 Blog Post Generator]( DevOps - [ChatGPT Code Review]( - [AI-powered Infrastructure-as-Code Generator]( CLI Tools - [Voice-based chatGPT]( - [Explain your runtime errors with ChatGPT]( - [GPT3 WordPress post generator]( - [Assistant CLI]( - [AI Commit - Automagically generate conventional commit messages with AI]( - [Use ChatGPT to generate PPT automatically, all in one single file]( - [SearchGPT: Connecting ChatGPT with the Internet]( Low-Code App Development [Comido]( Reverse Engineering Apps Tutorial Code obfuscation in Android apps Code obfuscation is a process of modifying the code to protect intellectual property and to make it difficult to reverse engineer. Code obfuscation only modifies the method instructions or metadata; it does not change the logic/flow or the output of the code operation. Android malware is also known to utilize obfuscation techniques to hide its malicious behavior. However, obfuscation can also be defeated. A skilled reverse engineer would be able to defy the obfuscation techniques implemented and still find the interesting bits in the application code. Developers may use the default obfuscation tool ProGuard, available in Android Studio, or also use a third-party obfuscation tool available in the market. Depending upon the type of obfuscation used, the de-obfuscation technique should be changed. ProGuard is an open source command-line tool that can be used to obfuscate Java code. One of the ways to de-obfuscate the DEX bytecode is by identifying and using the de-obfuscation methods in the application. This can be done by running the Java code of de-obfuscation methods (the de-obfuscation method code implemented) on the other classes that you want to de-obfuscate. To understand better, download the release build of the SecureStorage application from the following link: - SecureStorage (Release Build): [(. This release build has a basic level of obfuscation implemented on it using ProGuard. Let's decompile it using JADX. Follow the same steps as followed in the Extracting the Java source code section. [Figure 3.17 – ProGuard obfuscation] ProGuard obfuscation You can see that the class names have been modified to random letters. On further analysis, you will notice that the utils section no longer seems to have classes other than CommonUtils. But, for the app to function, the encryption class and the key have to be there in the code itself[...read more](. [Read the Book]( What's Happening in Mobile App Dev? Android - [What’s new in the Jetpack Compose March ’23 release]( - As part of the [Compose March ‘23 Bill of Materials]( [Jetpack Compose]( version 1.4, Android's modern, native UI toolkit is released. This release contains new features like Pager and Flow Layouts, and new ways to style your text, such as hyphenation and line-break behavior. It also improves the performance of modifiers and fixes several bugs. - [Media3 is ready to play!]( - The full [release]( of the [Jetpack Media3]( library is announced. Media3 is the new home for APIs that enable you to create rich audio and video experiences. Instead of using these separate libraries, Media3 provides a unified API for playback use-cases and also expands to cover new use-cases like video editing and transcoding. Microsoft - [File and Folder dialogs in .NET MAUI with CommunityToolkit]( - Interacting with files and folders is a routine task for countless applications, yet it often involves writing tedious platform-specific code. The good news is that the new [CommunityToolkit.Maui]( [version 5.0]( now contains the enhanced versions of FolderPicker and FileSaver classes which provide an easy way to select target folders and save files to the filesystem across all the .NET MAUI platforms. - [Announcing TypeScript 5.0]( - This release brings many new features, while aiming to make TypeScript smaller, simpler, and faster. The changes include new decorator’s standard, added functionality to better support ESM projects in Node and bundlers, provided new ways for library authors to control generic inference, expanded our JSDoc functionality, simplified configuration, and made many other improvements. See you next week! [Someone forwarded this email? Subscribe here!]( We understand that people move on or sometimes need a break away from emails. If you wish to stop receiving [_mobilepro]( emails, simply opt out using the button below. [Unsubscribe]( Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing, All rights reserved. Hello, Thank you for being a part of the Newsbytes weekly newsletter. Team Packt Our mailing address is: Packt Publishing Livery Place 35 Livery StreetBirmingham, West Midlands B3 2PB United Kingdom [Add us to your address book]( As a GDPR-compliant company, we want you to know why you’re getting this email. The _mobilepro team, as a part of Packt Publishing, believes that you have a legitimate interest in our newsletter and the products associated with it. Our research shows that you,<< Test Email Address >>, opted-in for communication with Packt Publishing in the past and we think that your previous interest warrants our appropriate communication. If you do not feel that you should have received this or are no longer interested in _mobilepro, you can opt out of our emails by [unsubscribing here](. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.