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Suggestions for links to add are welcome.
Tools for developing for Android:
- The Android Software Development Kit (SDK) is required to develop for Android, as is a Java Development Kit (JDK).
- Until Google I/O 2013, Eclipse was the primary IDE used for Android development (though it was always possible with other IDEs too). There is an Eclipse plugin available from Google which is definitely useful.
- At Google I/O 2013, Android Studio was announced, an IDE specifically for Android Development based on IntelliJ IDEA (Community Edition).
Warning: At the time of writing (May 2013), this is is still available as an early access preview, meaning that it is an unfinished product. - While Android development is normally Java based, there may be reasons to develop native code in C or C++. While this should be kept to a minimum due to portability issues it is possible using the Android Native Development Kit (NDK).
- The Android SDK comes with an emulator for testing apps in development, however this emulator is not great; for this reason it is advisable to have physical devices available for testing. If the apps Graphical User Interface (GUI) is different on devices of various sizes (which should be the case for many apps) it is best to have several devices with different screen sizes available.
Useful resources:
- To get started, check out the Android Training area. Here you will find many tutorials on how to develop apps for Android with the tools provided out of the box.
- When developing for Android, I always find it useful to have the Android API documentation at hand. To a certain extent, the Java API documentation can be useful too; however not everything available in standard Java is also available for Android. These documents explain the use of various classes.
- Also useful are the various Android API Guides, explaining how various parts of the Android system, libraries and components can be used.
- Special attention should be paid to the best practices suggested by Google.
- When developing for mobile, there are many different screen sizes you'll have to work with. screensiz.es helps you find out, which ones.
Libraries useful for general app development:
- While graphical feedback is very useful, sometimes haptic feedback (= vibration) can be very intuitive. For this reason, the company immersion offers a Haptic SDK which offers the programmer very accurate control over the vibration motor. To check out how the various effects feel, one can install the free Happtic Effect Preview app on a testing device.
- If you want to use augmented reality, DroidAR is a useful library that can be used for free or commercial apps (under different licenses, check the link).
- While Google offers payment methods via Google Wallet, sometimes PayPal is an easier choice for users. So if you want to support PayPal payments, use the PayPal Android SDK.
- Part of the Google Play services SDK, the Google Maps Android API can be used to include maps and map based services in your apps. Alternatively, libraries like osmdroid can be used, using maps from the OpenStreetMap project rather than from Google Maps.
- NEW(2013-07-18): For cloud bases services, there are several options. Windows Azure is one, Google Cloud Messaging is another. Both can be used to share information over several devices or send messages to users of your app.
Libraries useful for game development:
- Many mobile games today support online features such as leaderboards, achievements or multi-player modes. Google offers Google Play Game Services for these kinds of features. Alternatively, Lounge by ANDLABS offers similar features. Both solutions are multi platform.
- Also multi platform, the libGDX framework does a lot of the work game programmers normally have to do, thereby simplifying the task of creating mobile games.
