This recent blog post from Venmo discusses performance optimization in Android apps through a series of real-life examples regarding Venmo's recent update to its app. The primary goals of the optimization, According to Venmo, were to:

• Flatten view hierarchies.
• Reduce overdraw.
• Make fewer potentially blocking calls on the main UI thread.
• Avoid system garbage collection as much as possible.

And the post is divided into sections according to these topics. The result is an engaging and particularly useful look at performance optimization, both in terms of tips and strategies for achieving it and in terms of techniques for determining where optimization is needed; a graph of rendering time per frame is an interesting tool, for instance, and the post details a number of other tools for similar performance visualizations.

Android developers interested in making their apps as fast as they can be should check out the full post at Venmo. There are a lot of useful tips and tools, and some could do a lot of good without a serious time investment.