4 Great Courses to Get You Started with Android App Development
Android app development is an extremely lucrative field of work. If you have a knack for programming and you’re searching for a place in this huge industry, we at Share IT strongly advise you to consider a career in Android app development.
Apart from enabling you to collect handsome paychecks (which everyone loves), Android app development offers loads of other interesting opportunities for talented developers. This is a booming industry with lots of opportunities and interesting projects where dedicated junior developers can perfect their craft and build recognition.
The process of learning how to build Android apps is similar to the process of learning how to read and write in school. You start small with the basics and then work your way up to complex structures.
First, you acquaint yourself with what an Android app developer actually does from 9 to 5. You learn about creating corresponding functions that match the product’s demand, application module design (and coding and testing), tech support, etc. Even though this seems like a lot of hard work, it’s not. Especially if you find a great source to learn from.
There are a dozen high-quality available online courses that can introduce you to the world of Android app development and teach you how to create functioning products in a matter of weeks. Here’s a list of couple of Android app development courses that we at Share IT tend to recommend to our junior devs and interns:
1. The Complete Android N Developer Course on Udemy
Udemy is still probably the biggest and most popular learning destination online. Apart from offering its users an endless database of courses on almost every imaginable topic, Udemy also gives experts an opportunity to share their knowledge with the world and get paid for it.
Since teachers are in charge of the curriculum and setting the price for their course, as a user, you can find numerous courses on the same topic that radically differ in price.The price range usually goes from 5 to 100+ dollars.
As an unwritten rule, the price often reflects the quality of the course. Most cheaper courses on the platform offer just basic information which is not great for users who are looking for practical knowledge that they can immediately apply on a project they’re working on. Of course, you also don’t want to overpay for a course and figure out that you could have gotten the same knowledge from a much cheaper program. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.
“The Complete Android N Developer Course” is definitely the best one we at Share IT found on this platform. Created by Rob Percival and Marc Stock, this course is meant for aspiring devs who are interested in building an Android app from scratch. If you have zero knowledge regarding how the apps are created, start here! At the moment of writing this article, the course’s price is $11.99.
In this series of short lectures, Rob Percival and Marc Stock will introduce you to Android studio, Java code, and advanced Android features. In addition to this, the course will help you understand how to use maps in your app building process and how to store data permanently. It’s a great place to acquaint yourself with the fundamentals of Android app development.
2. Android App Development on Udacity
Just like Udemy, Udacity is an extremely popular MOOC-based e-learning platform where students from all over the globe come to educate themselves on a variety of different subjects. To find the right course, you need to be prepared to do a bit of digging. The quality of content varies on a case-by-case basis.
Udacity has a special Nanodegree program where the total cost of the course is divided into 6-12 month payments and students get a certificate of completion once it's all over. Users who pay for this program get a chance to thoroughly learn a specific IT-based skill of their choice.
A particular Nanodegree course that we found extremely useful on this platform is the “Become an Android Developer” course that was built in collaboration with Google.
This course is meant for students who have zero background in development. It teaches you everything, from A to Z. After successfully completing the project, you will have sufficient experience to develop an Android APP of your own and will get Google certified. The course will set you back $199 a month.
3. Google developers training: Android
Google Developers Training is a platform that hosts different developer-oriented courses created by Google engineers. Meant for both beginners and experienced developers, this is an address you should bookmark if you’re interested in acquiring new knowledge and leveling up as a developer.
As you can see once you open the website and click on one of the courses, the website will redirect you to Udacity. The “Developing Android Apps with Kotlin” course is highly-recommended. A couple of our team members have gone through this course and they loved it.
4. Android & Kotlin Tutorials on Raywenderlich
Last, but not least - Raywenderlich. Built for developers by developers, Raywenderlich is a community website that offers loads of high-quality programming tutorials. Every piece of content that is hosted on this website has gone through three rounds of edits before the editorial team made it accessible to the community. Raywenderlich goes to great lengths to ensure that all the content that the website promotes is technically accurate and full of useful knowledge for the users.
The best part of this community website is that all of the available content is free. Unlike most free programming courses that you can find online, the price doesn’t reflect the quality. For Android development especially, there are more than 25 free tutorials on Raywenderlich that can teach you everything you want to know about this particular topic.
Visit the following page to explore all the courses. If you finish all of them, we guarantee you’ll have enough knowledge to start creating Android apps on your own.
Closing Words
Thank you for taking the time to read our latest blog post. We hope it helped you see that knowledge is everywhere around us and that all you have to do to develop a new, profitable skill is just pick the right course for you and commit to its curriculum. If you have any questions regarding Android app development and where to learn, feel free to send us an email at contact@shareit.rs.