Yup! It's a major step in building any Java application. Things like stripping symbol names, removing unused APIs, and processing non-java assets like images. F

Yup! It's a major step in building any Java application. Things like stripping symbol names, removing unused APIs, and processing non-java assets like images. For Android applications Gradle handles this by invoking some Android specific utilities alongside the java ones, but there's tons of build tools out there for Java that handle doing these things for everything from Blu-Rays to web apps.