Starting with Android

“But when does the Android version come out?”
–The first blog comment after any iOS app gets announced.

Clearly there’s a demand for Android app development, and it’s turning the platform with the lovable green mascot into more and more of a strong first choice rather than just a secondary option to iOS.

With over one billion devices activated, Android is an exciting space to make apps to help you communicate, organize, educate, entertain or anything else you’re passionate about.

If that’s not enough, here are a few more reasons to learn Android:

• You’ll be plugged into the open source platform with (at the time of press) the largest market share of smart devices worldwide.
• Android’s policies on device provisioning and app submission are more open than Apple’s, meaning that once you complete your first app—as you’ll do in this tutorial—you and your friends can enjoy it on your devices right away!
• If you have experience developing for iOS, you can become well-versed in the ways that the two platforms coincide and differ (we’ll discuss a few in this tutorial) and what you like about each. Then you’ll have more tools at your disposal for your next mobile project.
• It’s not just the iPhone anymore. There are so many smartphones, tablets, glasses, and watches out there, coming from so many manufacturers, and they’re all trying to jump into the game. You don’t have to be any sort of market analyst to know that there are a few important platforms and Android is one of them.

So if you’ve been intent on, thinking about, or simply playing with the idea of learning Android… Make Your First Android App is the tutorial series for you!

There aren’t any prerequisites to start. You’ll learn how to set up all the tools you need to become an Android developer-in-training. Then you’ll put together your own full-fledged Android app from scratch! This app will, when completed, help you get details about a book you’re interested in using online search sources.

By the end of Part Three of this series, your app will include useful features like:

• Saving app data locally on the phone.
• Loading and interacting with a dynamic list of data.
• Accessing an online data source.
• Sharing links through social networks.

Android, and several popular frameworks for it, make all of these features really simple to implement. Why not start learning this easy and powerful platform for yourself, today?