Android video courses

Some people were asking me about resources from which they could learn Android. There are numerous courses on the Internet as well as books. You could probably just google them. What I want to focus on in this post though are video courses/tutorials. I've taken some of them and I really liked this form of studying. I've also done research to find out about less known ones. So here they are, ordered by the amount of experience I have with them.

Coursera

It's a great site with free courses offered by the best universities in the world. I've taken almost ten of them now (not only related to programming) and they were all amazing. Only if you need a paper certificate of accomplishment, you have to pay a small amount of money. The only problem is that classes start at specific dates a few times a year, so that all students can work together and help each other. If there's no active session, you have to wait till the next one. Here are those related to Android:

Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems
8 weeks, 5-10h/week

Creative, Serious and Playful Science of Android Apps
11 weeks, 5-10h/week

Pattern-Oriented Software Architectures: Programming Mobile Services for Android Handheld Systems
8 weeks, 8-12h/week

Programming Cloud Services for Android Handheld Systems
10 weeks (6 core), 4-6h/week

Udacity

Udacity offers probably the highest quality, most extensive and up to date Android courses taught by the best teachers (e.g. Reto Meier himeself) and endorsed by Google. It's enough to say that almost 100k people have signed up for them so far... and they've been available for around a month. The video materials are free. If you need access to projects' source code, help from a coach, or a verified completion certificate, you need to pay $150.

Developing Android Apps
8 weeks assuming 6h/week, $150 for the paid track

UX Design for Mobile Developers
4 weeks assuming 6h/week, $150 for the paid track

Udemy

It's one of the biggest e-learning sites with plenty of Android videos for beginners and advanced users. Prices range from free to about $150. Other courses (design, programming, monetization) are of high quality as well. There's plenty of social proof - good ratings and reviews. The most popular classes have up to 35k students.

Most popular Udemy Android courses

Learn Android Programming From Scratch - Beta

Game Development Crash Course with Corona SDK

Learn by Doing - Android for Beginners

Google I/O 2014

Google I/O is an annual software developer-focused conference held by Google in San Francisco, California. Its significant part is dedicated to Android. They will not teach you how to start making your apps, but rather tell you about new SDK capabilities, design guidelines, devices (wearables), Google Glass programming, material design, etc.

Google I/O 2014 Videos (you can filter Android related ones using the right panel)

Google I/O 2014 Android App to watch videos from your phone or tablet

Google I/O 2013 for last year's videos

YouTube

It's probably the biggest repository of videos ever existent. Why not use it to learn some Android? The channels I watch the most are:

Android Developers

and their

Android Design in Action series

If you want to learn from scratch, there are playlists with thousands or even millions of students like you. Take a look at the following ones. Just be careful - they're becoming more and more outdated, dating back to 2011.

Android Application Development Tutorials
200 videos, 2.7mln views

Android Tutorial for Beginners
106 videos, 290k views

Android Bootcamp Training
2011, 18 one-hour-long lessons, 58k views

Android Mobile Development Tutorial
12 videos, 25k views

CS 282: Systems Programming for Android
26 videos, 21h in total, 21k views

lynda.com

Online video tutorials to help you learn software, creative and business skills. It's a paid site with a monthly fee starting from $25. They don't offer a-z courses, but rather smaller 3h-5h ones targeted to teach you a specific skill like creating a note-taking app or a simple multi-platform game in Flash. The nice thing is that once you become a member, you gain access to all the courses they have.

Android related tutorials on lynda.com

lynda.com Android app

Android SDK Essential Training - 5h 10min

Building a Note-Taking App for Android - 3h 7min

Building and Monetizing Game Apps for Android - 2h 55min

Connecting Android Apps to RESTful Web Services - 3h 24min

Distributing Android Apps - 1h 38min



I hope you like my list. As always, I encourage you to leave comments with your experiences below. Help other readers find a course/tutorial for them or avoid the bad ones. Happy studying!

App review exchange with SmoothReviews

Many Android developers who release their first apps have problems getting an audience for them. It's really not easy to make people rate, review and share what you create. And without any social proof, obtaining new installs or getting featured by Google Play is very hard.

That's why people post their work on Facebook and Twitter, ask friends to install and rate it, create groups of mutual help or look for others with a similar problem to exchange reviews. All of the above usually with meager results. Your Facebook friends hardly care about your geeky side. Having a separate page or Twitter account for the apps might help, but you need to have some followers beforehand. Friends can always write a couple of nice words, but how many of them willing to do it every time you come up with a new app do you have? In self-help groups and review exchanges people mindlessly install what you tell them, rate very often without even running the app and then simply remove it from their device. If Google does not penalize those votes, they probably will at some point. After some time of practising this, your Google Play account will most probably look like a mess, recommending to you useless and uninteresting apps, just because you liked similar ones...

SmoothReviews might be the answer for this problem. It's basically a review exchange portal where you rate and review other people's apps and in exchange they do the same for you. The difference is that you pick the apps you want to rate and you don't have to give them five stars - just be honest. By requirement you have to keep the reviewed app for 48 hours. It's advised to write at least two or three sentences including some constructive criticism if necessary. Paid apps are supported as well, but they require you to return the favor. When you sign up, you get two app slots for free, but if you do it through my link, you get an extra one. The whole reviewing process usually takes a couple of minutes and includes taking a screenshot of what you wrote. Try it out if you think it might help you.

If you have any questions about SmoothReviews or want to share your experiences with it, please use the comments section. Perhaps you even get to review one of my apps :)