Android Development

Overview

There are many advantages to choosing Android as the platform to develop for. It is a highly portable operating system, it is not limited to smartphones and tablets. Although, nowadays these are of course around the most commonly systems that people use, so there is much reason and sense to develop applications for these platforms.

Development Tools

When talking Android development, the first thing that probably jumps to mind for anyone with experience in developing applications for Android is Google's Android Studio. That is probably the most powerful and flexible IDE out there for Android. It is obviously very well documented with lots of tutorials. On the up-side, developing expertise in using Android Studio is likely to have much use for you, and it is a skill that is certainly in high demand in the workplace. However, learning Android Studio does take some time commitment, you're probably not got to get to a highly functional solution in a very short time, although there are various libraries, reusable components and frameworks that can help get things done faster. Accordingly, if you are needing fairly regularly used functionality and interfaces, then it may be quicker to use a development tool or packages that has much of the functionality you need, and you just need to put the parts together. That is how increasingly more programs are being developed, for Android as well as other computing platform (some points on this issue at: Top-12 most used tools).

Android Studio itself has many packages included that can help you get things done quicker, as apposed to building it all from the bottom up. The following sites are useful for their recommendations discuss of development tools for Android:

Top-20 Tools for Android Development

If you have any suggestions or recommendations on tools you would recommend, especially for use in final year projects or postgraduate research projects, please consider editing this page and adding to the list (the site moderator will check any additions).