Our Top 5 Video Courses for Beginning Android Development

Every so often, we take a look back at the past year to see which beginning Android development videos were the most popular. And outside of the Android learning paths that we posted about yesterday, it’s interesting to see where other developers are spending their time.

Perhaps you might find something here that gives you an idea about where you need to hone your Android knowledge, or a new library or technique that you want to dig in to!

Here they are, starting with #5…

5. Publish to the Google Play Store

In Publish to the Google Play Store, you’ll learn how to build a release-ready APK and upload it to the Google Play Store. Along the way, you’ll learn how to use the developer console and the guidelines to follow before publishing an app.

This course has the following eight videos:

• Overview and Requirements: Welcome to the course! In this episode, get an overview of the process to upload an app to the play store and the requirements that the app should meet.
• Prepare Your App for Release: Before uploading your app to the Play Store, make sure that no sensitive data is leaked. Learn how to ensure that no logs are sent when you publish your app.
• Use the Play Console: In this episode, learn how to create a new developer account and configure basic settings.
• Build your APK: Learn how to create a signed apk of your app that you can upload to the Play Store.
• Create a Test Release: It’s useful to get feedback from users before publishing a final version of your app. Learn about the different kinds of test versions and when to use them.
• Create a Production Release: Your alpha version has been released to testers. Now, create a production release which will make your app available to the entire world!
• Link to Google Play: Learn how to use the different link formats that Google offers to bring your users to your app’s home page, developer’s home page, and more.

4. Beginning Android Layouts

In Beginning Android Layouts, you’ll conquer the basics of creating Android user interfaces, starting with layouts such as LinearLayout, then switch to using the newer ConstraintLayout.

This course has 30 videos in four parts:

• Introduction to Android Layouts: You’ll build the starter app, learn about ViewGroups, Layout Editors, the view hierarchy, margins, padding and more.
• Basic Layout Types: From RelativeLayout to LinearLayout and FrameLayout and beyond, learn about the most common layout types and how they work in your app.
• ConstraintLayout: By understanding how constraints and ConstraintLayout work, you’ll be able to build complex and efficient layouts in your apps without necessarily nesting view groups inside each other.
• Configuration Changes: Ever felt the pain of rotating your device and an app not changing from portrait mode to landscape? Learn how to support orientations and device densities.

3. Programming in Kotlin: Fundamentals

In Programming in Kotlin: Fundamentals, you’ll learn the fundamental building blocks of Kotlin, through hands-on exercises and challenges! Explore the world of data types, comparison and logical operators, loops, control flow, functions, classes as custom types, and more.

This course has a whopping 47 videos in six parts:

• Using Data Types & Operations: Covers IDE setup, Booleans, branches, flow control and more.
• Storing Data In Collections: Where would we be as programmers without collections? Pairs, triples, arrays and lists are your friends when it comes to working with data.
• Managing Control Flow: Your program makes lots of decisions along the way; learn how to work with loops, iterating over collections, when expressions and more.
• Exploring More Collections: When an array or list isn’t enough, learn how to use maps and sets, and the unique data functions to each.
• Writing Functions: Instead of copying code through your program, use the power of functions to make your program flexible and efficient.
• Creating Classes: Taking the flexibility of your program further, you’ll learn about classes, how to create data models, and create data classes.

2. Kotlin Flow: Getting Started

Kotlin Flow: Getting Started introduces you to the new, asynchronous stream library from JetBrains, the company behind the Kotlin language. Sharing many similarities with Rx streams, Kotlin Flow is built on top of Kotlin Coroutines. Get started by learning the concepts and usage patterns for the Flow API within IntelliJ IDEA projects. Then, see Flow in action in an Android app. Note: Flow is experimental in Kotlin 1.3 but will likely be stable in Kotlin 1.4.

This course has 14 videos in three parts:

• Kotlin Flow Primer: Learn about cold asynchronous streams, how to create simple flows, use flow operators, and more.
• Working with Flows: In this section, you’ll learn how to change the flow context, how to buffer flows, how to combine flows and how to handle exceptions.
• Kotlin Flow on Android: Put all this knowledge to use in a project! You’ll create a repository flow, use operators and channels and combine flows in a real-life situation.

1. Kotlin Coroutines: Fundamentals

It seems like Android developers just can’t get enough of Kotlin Coroutines! In Kotlin Coroutines: Fundamentals, you’ll learn the fundamentals about threads and coroutines, along with the basics of the Kotlin Coroutines framework.

This course has 11 videos in two parts:

• Beginning Threads: This is your entry point into coroutines. With the sample project included, you’ll explore blocking network calls, separating calls to other threads, and posting call results back on the main thread.
• Beginning Coroutines: Building on the first section, you’ll launch a coroutine, dispatch work to various threads, and then post results back to the main thread.

Where to Go From Here?

If you’re interested in digging into one or more of these courses, great news — they’re all included as part of an Ultimate Beginner subscription, which gives you access to over 60+ courses and all seven of our foundational programming books. It’s the best way to get started – or sharpen your skills – as a beginning developer.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Ultimate Beginner subscription, we’ve got a handy post here explaining what’s included, or you can head over to our main Ultimate Subscription page to see which subscription is right for you!

Enjoy – and let us know if any of these courses are your favorites, too!