How to Develop Your First Android Application & Publish It On Google Play Store

In the last couple of years, the mobile app market has been expanded by leaps and bounds. Therefore, the mobile marketing become quite competitive. To ensure the visibility of your application in such a complex scenario, it is important for you to be very particular about the approach being following for android app development.

When it comes to developing an android application, it is not as hard as it might seem to many. If you are focusing on developing a simple application initially, the below given 10 steps will help you to develop your first android app and publish it on Google Play Store.

This 10 steps program covers everything from ideation to play store publishing; however, if you are not from coding background, you will possibly need more time to learn the basics of Java alone.

Follow these steps below to start and develop your own Android app:

Step 1: Ideation

The first step of developing an application is to have an idea of what you are going to develop. By working toward a project, you can make learning a lot simpler as it develops context and direction. Therefore, the first step of app development is ideation – make sure to come-up with a unique and exclusive app concept.

For an exceptional app idea, you really need is the problem and there are lots of problems. Successful and well-known entrepreneurs are known for solving problems in a way that we could not have imagined ever.

All the products and services that you use were all developed to solve a problem, so you should think out-of-the-box and developing something that gives solution to users’ problem. However, there is no need to become the next Steve Jobs with a world-class product and idea. The main aim of your app must be creating something that is simple yet easy to access for users.

Step 2: Draw a Wireframe

Now, you have got the idea and know what you wanted to develop, right. Now, it’s time to come-up with a basic wireframe for the application as wireframing is one such expression that often used in web design; however, it applies here too.

It only means to drawing a map of every single screen, of the buttons and of any graphics that you wanted to use. By this, you will get a complete outline for everything that you want to develop.

However, you can also get help to develop wireframes from Google. It is advisable to you to go with something that is less complex for your first app. There is no need to be bothered about following any kind of method for developing your plan either as you just need to draw it out in a way that you comprehend and it comes naturally from your mind. Make use of some grid paper and sketch freely.

Step 3: Time for Choosing Your IDE & Setting it Up

Now, the next biggest step is to select your IDE and programming language and set-it up. As you know that IDE is your Integrated Development Environment, a piece of software that provides everything you need to develop your applications.

This high-end software will deliver the window, where you will enter your code and it will check it and format it as you type. Then it will accumulate everything that you require to develop your applications.

However, the IDE is not the programming language, depending on the method that you are using you also need to download the Software Development Kit that contains the compilers for the programming language itself. Though, there is no need to worry as you just need to follow the outlined steps and it will be handled for you.

To develop android apps, the most common way is to make use of Android Studio and Java as these methods are officially recommended by Google and it will afford you a lot of flexibility, making sure there is support if anything goes wrong. Apart from this, there are lots of other options also obtainable for your IDE and language that you are choosing. Unity and C++ is also an option in case if you wanted to develop a game.

Step 4: Get Basic Information of Java

As we have decided to make use of Android Studio and Java to develop the application, you need to learn a little about Java. Make sure that you do not dig in and become a coding wizard, you need to know at least basic like how the formatting looks like and make yourself familiar with some simple concepts like classes, variables, conditional statements, etc.

There is no need to worry as it is a lot easier than you think, so go ahead. You just read enough to make yourself knowledgeable of basic idea of how Java works and what it is going to involve. And you can also think about this in the context of your app.

Step 5: Developing Images

Now, it’s time to develop and acquire the images that you need. However, you should also know what exact materials you want based on your wireframes and that will comprise things like icons, logos, backgrounds, etc.

There are some of the things that can be developed by yourself using tools like Adobe Illustrator. Rest of you can borrow and luckily, there are numerous free resources, where you can search images in the public domain and look for icons, fonts, tools and many more resources for android developers.

Step 6: Begin with Developing the Layout

In Android Studio using the designer, you are going to develop your layout. Through this tool, you can simply drag and drop the widgets, where you want them on the page. As you need to begin a new project in Android Studio to perform this; however, still there will be no coding necessary at this stage.

To begin a new project, you just need to select File> New> New Project. You can follow these steps for selecting a name for your project and for your activities and select ‘Empty Activity’. Before starting to arrange, where we want our widgets/views, we will launch the designer.

If you have decided to develop more than one screen, you must create a new activity as the main goal is to make the app as simple as possible, so do not try to add more activities. Though you are going with one or two screens, you can use a minimalistic design that you can finish the basic layouts in a single day.

Step 7: Start Writing the Code

Here comes the most challenging part of app development and that is the adding the code. As you already know the basics of Java and widgets/views are already in your hands. Now, you need to open the Java file for your main activity and develop some ‘OnClick’ events so that you can add code that will run only when users click a button.

First, you can take whatever you know about Java and then prefer some tutorial as well to make some things happen when your buttons are clicked and handle things like resources, etc. Try to do more with what you know about Java and set up the basic things like operations, button clicks, variables and more.

Step 8: Executing High-end and Advanced Functionality

You may have not finished coding in one single day with some of the basic information of Java; therefore, it will take a little longer. By this, you may have some of the basic functionality in place so that your application responds to button clicks and perhaps stores some variables.

The next step is to add more advanced functionality which will be for your app. For instance, if you want your application to play music when a button is clicked, maybe you wanted to add some flashy animations. In fact, you can also learn more about 3d product rendering to elevate those animations. Maybe, you want to know how to transition from one activity to other.

Step 9: Give Some Extra Polish

Being real and flexible, your application is maybe a little rough across the edges, so you must be doing some stress testing to make sure it is not going to crash all the time and perhaps add some polish here.  However, there are some of the different ways by which you can test your apps on a comprehensive range of devices without purchasing Carphone Warehouse.

Another important tip is to give your application to your friends and family so they can have a go at testing it. Try to do things that are possible to make your basic application polished and ready to launch.

Step 10: Releasing Your Application

Ultimately, the day comes to launch your application. It means you must sign your app and develop a new APK. Signing is one such form of certification that makes sure no one except you can upload updates etc. You can find official documentation here. You can also view this page to get how to develop a release-ready APK through Android Studio.

So, these are the 10 steps of developing your first successful android applications with basic functionalities. You can follow these steps and launch your own application; however, if you are finding any difficulty in developing it, you can hire a proficient android app development company that has an ingenious team of android developers to help you as well.