Well I must say that being an android developer is not that easy and at the same time if you know the your basic fundamentals its not that hard too. In everything not only android , not only java or c or c# or music or bananas or whatever if you wanna get the stuff right or to know exactly what you`re doing it takes some time, patience and some basics.
What is android ?
Well, I cant make this a very technical article by showing you every nook and corner of Android because in here I intended to tell you what types things you have to know before getting into Android application development. So geeks, this is not for you. This is for geek wannabes. For geeks I will do another article later.
Simply saying android is an operating system. Just like we use Windows 8 , or MacOs on our PC , we can use android on our smart phones. Its a Google product and still it has the larger market segment of the smartphone users of the world and its over 60% I think. Other competing mobile operating systems are iOs by apple and windows mobile os by Microsoft.
What can I do with android ?
Well you can do pretty much everything with a smartphone these days. You can be the master and your phone will do exactly what you say it to do. Except for the simple and ordinary functionalities of a phone such as sending texts and having a call, you can talk to it and ask where is the nearest restaurant where you can get your favorite cappuccino or can you make it to the railway station before the office hours get over like that. Just Google what kind of android applications people use all over the world if you are really interested.
What should I know to start Android development?
Lets break it down the requirement.
2.You have to make interface for your apps. In here we have 2 options. Option 1 is the old,boring way of creating the interfaces in your code which is highly not recommended. Second and smooth option is create your interfaces separately which is maintainable and add them to your code or the app later. Almost every developer, company uses this way and for that we need XML. (Its Extensible markup Language i guess. Too lazy to goole. :p). Again you don't need to be an expert on XML. But its good to know your way arround.
3.Good IDE will save you a lot of time and feel like your coding in heaven. I personally like to work with Eclipse coz it helps me to lots of different developments stuff in PHP,Java and Andoird. It really doesn't matter what IDE you use. You can work on netbeans if you want. but It will be lot easier to work with Eclipse as it has some built in supports for Android development and testing.
4.You need a phone to test your apps. Yeah brother, even I haven't got a smartphone yet. Don`t worry. You can set up an emulator which is a virtual smartphone on your pc and you can do anything that any real smartphone can do.
5.Styling is cool. For a better and cool app you`ll need some cool graphics and buttons and layouts. You can custom crate your graphics with Photoshop and adobe Illustrator or with any kind of graphic software that is out there.
Other than those things you'll need some time and patience and some googling . Sometimes you may come across some problems that you can`t understand or explain even though you think your brain upside down.
Other than those things you'll need some time and patience and some googling . Sometimes you may come across some problems that you can`t understand or explain even though you think your brain upside down.
When that time comes, just give it some time and ask for some help. Google is your best friend here.
Try stackoverflow and yahoo answers. Worked for me.
And finally google some references, free e book or video tutorials and follow them carefully from top to bottom.
Thenewboston is great place to start. yeah I know. Its kinda long one. But hey, It has the stuff you want. You can try Android dev guide also. But its kinda full of everything.
So if you know any good tutorial or have any say in this or any problemos just leave a comment here.
Otherwise we are good to go.
