Introduction to Android Development
// February 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Android
In recent times I have been very captivated with the idea of being able to leverage my design/development skills in delivering engaging applications on mobile devices. I have some experience developing for the iPhone OS but found that Objective-C has a steep learning curve, and you need a paid Developer Account to be able to test on your own device. I wouldn’t say that developing for the iPhone was a terrible experience, but there are some aspects of it that I didn’t particularly enjoy. I’ve already stated my opinions about the Apple AppStore in a previous post. Perhaps I was a bit too harsh on it, but I still maintain that it is not an ideal situation for independent or hobbyist developers because it is so closed off. I think an excellent compromise is the Android platform. It may not have as big a consumer-base as the iPhone yet, but it affords developers much more room to experiment. Also, its java-based, therefore is relatively easy to pick up. Another major up-side is the fact that you can develop for Android using Eclipse, which is available for all major operating systems.
Now, let’s get down to it. Thinking along these lines, I went out looking for some tutorials/help docs on getting started with Android, and I found a short series by Tim Layton which I found extremely useful. I’ve embedded the videos from the series below, and will try to keep the list updated if more are made available. Cheers.
Lesson 0 -
Lesson 1 -
Lesson 2 -
Lesson 3 -
