Although much of mobile development revolves around phone applications, it also encompasses a lot more. Mobile development extends to creating applications for tablets, smart watches, other wearable devices, and anything that is powered by a mobile operating system, the most popular examples being iOS(Apple) and Android(Google). This is a great way to share your applications and ideas with the people around you because mobile devices are extremely accessible and widespread throughout the world. When combined with the wide variety features of modern smartphones(cameras, microphones, speakers, fingerprint readers), the possibilities are endless and are only limited by your imagination. Mobile development is extremely powerful and one of the most popular ways to easily create apps and show them off to everyone around you!
If you have an android device, you can skip this step. By connecting your device to your laptop, android studio should recognize the device which will allow you to install your app and demo it on your own phone.
Start a new project.
Name the application and set its save directory.
Set your desire API levels and/or any Android SDKs you would like to use.
Choose a starting activity.
From a beginner’s perspective, it may be best to start with Empty Activity as you will get to learn more.
Set the name of the activity and its corresponding layout file.
This is where you write most of your code(Java or Kotlin) and give functionality to the various parts of your application.
This is where you can see the layout of your app. You can drag and drop components across the screen to create your own customized layouts.
💡 Project ideas
Create a music sharing application with the Spotify API, an API that allows you to search for songs and play them back.
Build a more comprehensive weather forecast application using Dark Sky, one of the world's most comprehensive weather APIs.
Make your applications smarter by integrating the Houndify API, a service that adds voice-enabled AI and intelligence to your applications.
📚 Further resources
All things Android, from downloading Android Studio to Android documentation.
All things iOS, from setting up Xcode to learning Swift and much more.
Firebase Documentation and Tutorials. One of the most common mobile development platforms. Providing services such as real-time DB, authentication and much more.
❔ What is mobile development?
👩🏼💻 Android development
💡 Project ideas
📚 Further resources