This post explains how to treat a session with a local AI agent as a pair programming session, and how the four classic pairing styles map onto working with one. I’ll use Antigravity CLI for the concrete examples, though nothing here is specific to it. Swap in whichever agent sits in your terminal. ...

Like every year, I binge-watched I/O. And like every year I came out the other side with more links than time. A fire-hose of announcements, most of which you’ll never touch, a handful of which will change how you work next week. Here I filter for you. Links to the sessions are inline so you […] The...

Google just published a set of Android skills a collection of expert, AI-optimised instructions covering the most common and painful Android development workflows. (Upgrading to AGP 9, migrating XML layouts to Compose, wiring up Navigation… Read more of Android Skills: Expert Instructions for Your A...

Forget just installing Android Studio and calling it a day. To operate at scale, you need a local environment that augments your engineering intuition with LLM-powered efficiency. Here is your Day 1 guide to setting up your machine for success. The post Zero to AI: An Android Developer’s Vital Local...

Tired of fixing endless linting errors? What if an AI could do it for you? In this post, we’ll walk through how to build a Python script that uses Google’s Gemini to automatically fix static… Read more of Linting, Automated: AI-Powered Static Analysis with Gemini → The post Linting, Automated: AI-Po...

The intro before the intro. Like every year I watched the keynote & developer keynote with excitement, taking my usual notes and reactive thoughts as it streams. This year though instead of myself turning those… Read more of Google I/O 2025: AI Unleashed – What Android Devs Need to Know! → The post ...

The forEach loop, are you using it without thinking? In Kotlin, empirically forEach is often the go-to loop, it’s pragmatically close at reach in the IDE auto-complete, but is it always the right choice? This… Read more of Choosing Wisely: for vs. forEach in Kotlin (A Thinking Dev’s Perspective) → T...

This post gets you started with the new Gemma 3 model for on-device inference. Giving you the simplest steps to get started with AI on Android. Gemma 3 1B is a new model size in the… Read more of Get started with Gemma 3 LLM on Android now! → The post Get started with Gemma 3 LLM on Android now! fir...

This blog post explains how to create Room DAOs specifically for your Android debug build. These debug-only DAOs enable you to implement developer-centric features without affecting your production app. Keeping your codebase clean is essential… Read more of Room Debug DAOs in Android: Streamlining Y...

When introducing 3rd party libraries (like BugSee), often their configuration is dumped into your build.gradle/application:onCreate and mixed with everything else. This post shows you how to have cleaner, more maintainable code by creating your own… Read more of Android Bugsee SDK: Ignore the Docs, ...

Learn how to have runtime control of all parts of an animation or image, the color, opacity, scale, rotation .. any property within your SVG animation using Lottie Dynamic Properties. This tutorial is going to… Read more of Android Dynamic Animated SVGs (with Lottie Dynamic Properties) → The post An...

This artical is a quick introduction into setting up the Gemini API client SDK on Android to perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on images. Let’s jump straight in: The Gemini API gives you access to… Read more of OCR with Gemini LLM on Android → The post OCR with Gemini LLM on Android first ...

Wanting to use the latest versions of Compose, but your app compileSdk is falling behind? I’ve been there! If you have a compileSdk < 34 but want to use Compose version > 1.5.0 you’ll come… Read more of Emoji error! Using the latest Compose with compileSDK < 34 → The post Emoji error! Using the late...

The correct, complete, 2024, settings to configure the Java version in Gradle for Android. The post Setting JDK level in Android Gradle builds first appeared on Blundell.

This post explains how you can inject dependencies into Android legacy singletons, or any classes that aren’t conforming to your current Android architecture, using Dagger & Hilt. I’ll cut straight to the chase, if you have a reference to Context, (which you usually always do in spaghetti legacy cod...

I wanted to brighten the screen, but all articles said you needed Android permissions. Codswallop! Here's how! The post Set Activity Screen Brightness without Permission first appeared on Blundell.

Quick blog posting showing you the build.gradle.kts version of the default build.gradle file from the “empty activity” Android Studio template. This post will go stale fast, get it whilst its hot. 🙂 The original templates come from the New Project, other templates are explained here: https://develop...

Learn the steps needed in a typical Android take home test. Giving you the tools and knowledge you need to ace this part of any Android interview process. The post Android Job Interview – Take-Home Test Cheat Sheet first appeared on Blundell.

This post aims to demystify some of the steps in a typical Android interview process. We’ll discuss steps, strategies, targets and solutions. Getting you better prepared to get your next Android role. This blog is from personal experience, caveat up front that your experience could be completely dif...

This post shows you how to wrap a 3rd party Gradle plugin in your own plugin, so that you can interactive with it programmatically. The post Applying a 3rd Party Gradle Plugin as a Composite Plugin first appeared on Blundell.

This post describes how you can share code between your side projects without code duplication, remote hosting or versioning. The post Make a monorepo for your Android projects first appeared on Blundell.