CODEWITHSUNDEEP
android
Vincent Mimoun-Prat
Vincent Mimoun-Prat

Reputation: 28541

Android synchronisation between devices

I got an application that displays some items loaded from a webservice (e.g. Fruits). These items rarely change. You can also show availability of those items (e.g. for apples, 10kg is available at store A today, 20kg tomorrow, ...)

The user can bookmark some of those items on his phone. I need the user to be able to bookmark some of these items and to have his bookmarks synchronized between devices (I bookmark apples on my phone, I expect to see apples bookmarked in my tablet next time I open the app there).

More or less, I got around 40 items, no more. And each availability data would total to around 200 entries.

Which technique would you use to implement that?

My idea so far:

  1. I build a sqlite database (with contentprovider) of fruits and availabilities
  2. I synchronize this DB every 2/3 days (that is enough, no need to do it more often)
  3. I use a BackupAgent to synchronize the whole DB file

Do you think a database is overkill? The application is expected to always be ran with network connectivity (else we don't allow it).

My other option would have been:

  1. Load items and availability on application start
  2. bookmarks are kept within SharedPreferences
  3. I use a BackupAgent to synchronize only SharedPreferences

This seems less complicated, and more efficient on the sync part. However, I feel that is not really a clean way to do it and less future-proof.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 201

Answers (1)

Litrik De Roy
Litrik De Roy

Reputation: 1032

Android's backup API is only useful to initialize a new device based on the backups created by another device. See the backup API docs. It is not the right infrastructure to keep 2 devices in sync.

I suggest you take a look at the Cloud Save features of the Google Play Game Services. It allows you to sync data on two devices. It is typically used by games but can also be used in other scenario's (like yours).

Upvotes: 2

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