Mobile development for Android attracts newbies with career prospects. Let’s consider the advantages and disadvantages of this direction. The mobile developer is one of the highest-paid IT specializations today. Android smartphones account for 80% of the mobile device market.
Therefore, even though iOS developers “cost” more, Android programmers are freer in choosing a company and projects to work with. Consider the pros and cons of this profession.
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Why It is a Good Idea to Hire Android App Developers?
9 pluses of Android development
They are:
- Low development and device costs. To develop for iOS, you need a MacBook, which is not cheap. You can write Android code on any operating system: macOS, Linux, or Windows. The devices themselves are also two to three times cheaper than Apple products.
- One technology stack for all projects. A beginner needs to master one of two languages, an official development environment and a minimum of tools – for any new application, the technology stack will be the same, even when moving to another company. A beginner in the same web development will immediately face a “zoo” of tools.
- Source availability compared to iOS. Most of the Android code is open source: you can download it to your computer and learn how everything works from the inside.
Even though the operating system code is freely available, many of its components are developed in-house by Google. Some parts of the platform will remain closed. For example, app developers do not know how the Play Market works from the inside.
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- Well-written documentation. Many clear guides have been created for Android developers to simplify communication between professionals around the world.
- An active community of internet enthusiasts. A beginner can easily get support at any stage of their learning by coming to StackOverflow and GitHub with a question.
- The time the app appeared in the store. In the case of iOS, the bill goes for weeks, while with Android, the application is available for download in the store immediately after clicking the “Publish” button. It only takes a few hours for it to go to data centers.
- Application hosting cost. In the AppStore, this is $ 100 annually for the development program. And in the Google Play Market, you pay $ 25 once upon registration – and that’s where the costs end.
- Java. Learning it is a great start for a beginner developer, as you will master the basic concepts of OOP, with which you can quickly learn any other language. In addition to mobile, Java is used for writing web applications and games, and servers. Therefore, if you wish, you can change the field of activity without changing the main tool.
- Spheres of application. On Android, applications are programmed not only for smartphones, you can develop programs for smartwatches, Smart TV, VR / AR, and find an interesting project for yourself.
Of course, there are also pitfalls when creating mobile applications for Android, let’s see what the developer risks. Read more on https://fireart.studio/android-app-development-services/
Disadvantages of mobile development for Android
They are:
- Lots of devices. We said above that affordability is a plus. But the flip side of the coin is the need to maintain an application for each model of smartphones from different manufacturers with this system inside. On not very high-quality Chinese phones, the application may “crash” not through the fault of the developer, but because of hardware problems.
- Several versions of the operating system. iOS is updated annually, and older versions do not receive support – only the latest and penultimate ones are relevant. This is not the case with Android. Google cannot update the system on all devices – vendors do it. As a result, several versions of Android turn out to be relevant at once. Not all manufacturers update their devices quickly, and some don’t do it at all. More info on https://fireart.studio/cross-platform-app-development-services/