I've got a simple application where certain screen taps will result in the playing of an audio file. The problem i'm facing right now is the sound is not playing immediately with the screen press....

I suppose you use the simple mediaplayer class to play the audio file which requires to prepare the file each time before playing. This causes the delay. I hope it will be somehow fixed in the future. Till that time use the soundpool class, it does not need to be prepared, much faster. If you browse the forum here you will find a sample implementation.