Android Development: What You Need to Know to Get Started

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About 70% of people on our planet use mobile phones, and of this number, about 75% of devices are on the Android operating system. Therefore, in this article we will tell you how to make the lives of millions of people better or, in other words, how to become an Android developer.

First of all, it is worth adding that the Android social media marketing service OS is far from just smartphones. It is also used for tablets, and for e-books, and for wristwatches or fitness bracelets, and for notebooks-net-smartbooks, and for game consoles, and for TVs. This list is incomplete, but it already sufficiently expands the boundaries of your professional capabilities.

Some interesting and historical facts:

In July 2005, Google bought Android for $130 million, and in November 2007, it announced a mobile platform;
The OS was originally planned to be used for digital cameras.
Back in 2004, Samsung could have bought Android, but they didn't see its potential
Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, etc. are not only names of desserts, but also code names of system versions. All because their devices make life "nicer and sweeter", like desserts. However, this tradition was abandoned later (the further they moved through the alphabet, the more confused users became).
Android is translated from Greek as a person, a man + a humanoid robot. There is also a name for female robots, less popular in Russian - Gynoid.
By the way, the name itself was invented by Andy Rubin, one of the OS developers. Robots are one of his hobbies.
The founders also include Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White.
The logo was created by Russian designer Irina Blok.

Who is an Android developer?

This is a specialist who works on mobile applications (and we are not talking only about smartphones). From the initial stage of development (when you design the UX layout together with the design team (here we describe how this happens in an ideal world)) to publishing the application on Google Play. In between all this, there is a description of cases, “screen” development of the application, testing. In general, the development does not end, because then the team will analyze user behavior and regularly improve the program - which means making changes, releasing updates and new versions.

Each of these stages has its own specialists, so you will have to communicate a lot - to do everything in a “user-friendly” way.

As for technical skills , we will note the minimum blocks of knowledge for entering the profession: programming language, development environment and directly the structure of the Android OS, as well as the version control system (additional skill).

Among soft skills, you should pay attention to English (even if the customer speaks Russian, the most relevant information will be in English) and communications (as already mentioned above, this is teamwork - and you need to be able to ask questions, get answers, give answers yourself, while formulating them in a way that is understandable to others).

The main programming languages ​​​​for working with Android OS are Java and Kotlin . If your soul is already drawn to learning one of them - please. Today, both languages ​​​​are important and will not lose their relevance in the near future. This means that in any case, you will not go wrong and, if anything, you will have time to gain new knowledge.

If you do not have any preferences regarding the language, then take some time to compare these or those advantages. For example, Kotlin is focused on Android development, they bet on it, Google actively promotes it, etc. While Java has a wider range of applications - this includes backend development, Big Data, and much more (earlier in the blog we gave 8 reasons to learn Java) .

To learn more about mobile development and the differences between programming languages, we suggest watching our natives — Mobile Development for Android with Alexander Lebedev and Kotlin and Java for Android Developers with Andrey Kolubov. Time codes will help you navigate the topic, and the guests themselves (specialists with extensive experience and a desire to share it) will tell you about complex things in simple terms.

In short — ideally, it is better to know both languages ​​

Since most new applications are written in Kotlin, and millions of programs have already been created in Java (and this is the base).



Android Studio is an integrated development environment (or IDE — integrated development environment ), which is designed to write your own program and then edit the application interface. You can download it for free on the official website of the Android operating system.

To create cool, dynamic and high-performance applications, you also need to study the mobile SDK (software development kit) — or in other words, a set of tools (libraries, documentation, debugger, phone emulator, etc.).

Of the additional technical skills to get started, you should study how version control systems work. There are many, but you only need to get familiar with Git. This software is designed to facilitate the development process, in which changes occur constantly, and helps control the team's joint work on the project.