For Beginners and Novices! Understand Today’s Android App Development and Key Points in 40 Minutes

With more than a decade of history, Android app development continues to evolve every day. News and information is abundant with social media, blogs, and Google I/O. For engineers who have long been involved in Android development, these updates and advances are wonderful. But what about people with little to no experience in Android app development? I developed Android apps for 10 years until 2021, then spent three years away from pure Android development (working with Flutter during that time). In 2024, I returned to Android development after three years. Although my decade of experience gave me a solid foundation, I honestly felt, “So much has changed—catching up is tough!” I still feel that way. Looking back, I realized that people with little or no accumulated knowledge will struggle even to decide what they need to learn and what they can skip. This session focuses on those who want to try Android app development for the first time or improve their beginner-level skills. We will emphasize knowledge that will remain useful for a long time, while also touching on older topics you might safely skip and how far you should chase recent trends. Because the content centers on building personal technical skills as an Android developer, we will not cover career planning or team development. Given the 40-minute limit and the breadth of foundational topics, there will be few concrete code examples; instead, we will share links to sample code for reference. To give you an idea of the session, here are some sample themes (subject to change): - Basic development environment (Android Studio, Kotlin) - The four app components (Activities, Services, Broadcast receivers, Content providers) - What is a Fragment? - What is Jetpack? - How do you build UI? Android View or Compose - The current status of Data Binding and View Binding - Google Play Services and Firebase matter - Differences across OS versions - Definitely read the official documentation - Should I learn this? FAQ - How do you keep up with the latest information? Through my return to Android development after three years, I had the chance to relearn everything from scratch and gained many new insights. I hope this session, reflecting that experience, will inspire beginners and novices to enjoy Android app development even more. (Translated by the DroidKaigi Committee)

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  Shinobu Okano LinQ inc. Engineering Manager