One of the main reasons why people buy mobiles today is because of handset improvement and cool mobile phone applications. Mobile phones are quickly adopting the features of personal computers and the actual mobile applications are capable of doing all the functions that popular software on computers perform. Moreover, there are plenty of areas such as business applications, education/knowledge based applications or remote controlling applications that need new mobile apps. So, if you have an app idea that you want to develop, there are a lot of mobile platforms for you to choose from. Here I am going to tell you why Android can be seen as the best of these platforms.
Firstly: Ease of developing on the platform
Anyone can develop Android applications (any programmer at least!). Basically, anybody who knows how to use Java* can build an Android app. Of course, programmers who have other programming knowledge apart from only Java may find it easier to develop Android apps. I say it is easy because you can start writing your first Android app in about one hour and finish it in about two hours (may not be a very great app though). The first step is to download the Android SDK and some necessary tools for Eclipse. The second step is to start writing your application. The easy Android framework assists the developers to a great extent and this makes it easier to create innovative Android applications.
Secondly: It is open-source
This is the most prominent advantage of developing applications for Google’s Android. Android is the only mobile development platform where developers can get this much freedom. Android developers love the fact that they can take advantage of every system resource and create apps that improve on the operating system’s standard features. Another advantage of Android being open-source is that it encourages creativity. In fact, Google strongly believes that giving such kind of freedom to developers will lead to a burst of innovative applications and so far they seem to be right.
Thirdly: Testing your apps on multiple devices is easy
With Android, you can install an app to your phone from any source, not just the Android Market making it easier to debug and test your applications. The tools included in the SDK make it easy to install and run your application on the device each time you compile. You can install your application on the device directly from Eclipse or from the command line with ADB. That is a real advantage as it allows the developer to test its application on various devices without extra cost.
Fourthly: Barrier of entry is much lower
Here I am making reference mainly to launching your app on the Android Market. Again it’s Android and thus it is as easy as pie. You simply have to register as a developer, prepare and submit your apk and… you’re done! Within less than an hour, your app should be flying to a large, very large market. This is due specially to the fact that Android market has an extremely simple application approval process which is not the case for appstore.
Last but not least: It is becoming more and more popular
Android is probably the most user-friendly platforms out there and as a result is driving in more and more developers in the community. Many of these developers get really involved in the community and this can clearly benefit the newbies as they can get help from them. So support and documentation should not be a problem for someone who wishes to start developing Android apps. There’s also the fact that Android now holds about 50% of the smartphone market share meaning a lot of potential downloads. Thus, building an Android app will reach a much greater market than it would on another platform.
*If you are interested in becoming an Android developer in Mauritius, refer to our training section.
*There are other ways of developing Android apps apart from using Java. One of them is by using PhoneGap where you can write multi-platform apps using HTML5 and Javascript.
