How to Create Your First Android App in 2021

Learning how to make an Android app isn’t easy.

If you want to build one from scratch you have to develop an understanding of code, which can make the app development process time-consuming.

The good news is there are plenty of resources available online that can help. These materials make it possible to learn how to create an Android app on your own.

If you’re dedicated, you can gain the essential skills in just a few months.

In this article, we guide you through the app creation process. We’ve included links to the most helpful resources available for learning to code and learning Android development.

Table of Contents

• 1 Do You Need to Learn to Code?
• 2 Getting Started with Your Next Android App
• 3 What Is Java?
• 4 What about Kotlin?
• 5 Learning Android Development
  • 5.1 The Essential Android Development Tool: Android Studio
  • 5.2 Where to Find Help and Support on Your Android App Building Journey
  • 5.3 Resilience Is the Key to Creating Apps
• 
  

Image: Denny Muller/Unsplash

Do You Need to Learn to Code?

First, you need to learn to code if you want to create an app from scratch. If you don’t want to learn to code, you can use an app builder to create one based on a template.

In the first section of this article, we’ll focus on how you can learn the basics required to code your first app.

At the end, we’ll show you how you can create an Android app using AppInstitute’s drag and drop platform.

With our app builder, you can create an app in just a few hours. It’s the perfect choice for people who don’t have the time to learn a programming language needed to code.

Getting Started with Your Next Android App

There are two steps to learning how to create an Android app from scratch.

1. You need to learn the language used to code mobile apps.
2. Then you need to learn how to use this information to build an app.

Android apps are built using Java or Kotlin. While Kotlin is the official Android studio language, we’re going to focus on learning Java as it is more widely used.

We go into further detail about why we made this choice later in the article.

What Is Java?

Java is a general-purpose programming language used to create software on a variety of platforms.

It’s one of the most popular programming languages, so by learning it you’ll gain valuable app development skill.

You can use Java to build:

• Android apps for the Google Play Store
• Web applications
• Windows desktop apps
• Linux desktop apps
• Mac desktop apps

There are plenty of online courses that teach you the basics of Java.

We like those provided by Coursera and Treehouse as they both start with a basic Java course before teaching you more about building an Android app.

This adds structure to the learning process and keeps pushing you towards your goal of building a mobile app.

• Treehouse’s Beginning Android program starts with a Java Basics course that teaches you how to code in Java. It then goes on to teach the basics of Android app development. By the end of the course, you’ll know how to create simple mobile apps.
• Coursera has a highly rated Android App Development Specialization Course provided by Vanderbilt University. It’s designed for people with no prior knowledge and goes through the various stages of learning how to create an Android app—starting with learning Java.

Image: Christopher Gower/Unsplash

The downside is that you have to pay for both these courses. However, there are some free resources you can use to learn Java. Here are a few of them:

• Udemy has a free Java tutorial course with over 16 hours of video. It has a 4.3 star rating, and over 1 million people have signed up to the course to learn how to code.
• CodeAcademy has a beginner’s introduction to Java which you can try for free.
• Stanford University’s Programming Methodology Course teaches Java, although it looks a little dated.

What about Kotlin?

In 2017, Google changed the official language for building Android apps to Kotlin. This is a new programming language that is described as a more streamlined version of Java.

This raises the question of whether someone who wants to create an Android app should forget about learning Java and study Kotlin instead.

Most current advice suggests that if you are a complete beginner you should stick to Java because it is a more established language.