Posted by Dan Galpin
Developing Android Apps with Kotlin, developed by Google together with Udacity, is our newly-released, free, self-paced online course. You'll learn how to build Android apps using industry-standard tools and libraries in the Kotlin programming language.
Android development fundamentals are taught in the context of an architecture that provides the scaffolding for robust, maintainable applications. The course covers why and how to use Android Jetpack components such as Room for databases, Work Manager for background processing, the Navigation component, and more. You'll use popular community libraries to simplify common tasks such as Glide for image loading, Retrofit for networking, and Moshi for JSON parsing. The course teaches key Kotlin features such as coroutines to help you write your app code more quickly and concisely.
As you work through the course, you'll build fun and interesting apps, such as a Mars photo gallery, a trivia game, a sleep tracker and much more.
This course is intended for people who have programming experience and are comfortable with Kotlin basics. If you're new to the Kotlin language, we recommend taking the Udacity Kotlin Bootcamp course first.
The course is available free, online at Udacity; take it in your own time at your own pace.
Come learn how to build Android apps in Kotlin with us at https://www.udacity.com/course/ud9012.
Posted by Aleks Haecky, Training Developer & Word Artist, Google+, LinkedIn, Medium
The Kotlin Bootcamp Udacity course is a free, self-paced online course that teaches you the basics of the Kotlin programming language. This introduction to Kotlin was created by Google experts in collaboration with Udacity and is for people who already know how to program.
The Kotlin language lets you create apps in less time, writing less code, and with fewer errors.
This modern object-oriented language offers a strong type system, type inference, null safety, properties, lambdas, extensions, coroutines, higher-order functions, and many other features. Kotlin is so concise that you can create complete data classes with a single line of code.
Kotlin is officially supported for building Android apps, fully interoperates with the Java programming language and libraries, and is included with IntelliJ and Android Studio.
In this course you will learn everything you need to program in Kotlin, including:
You'll learn how to use extension functions to add helpful functionality to existing classes.
Extend built-in types:
fun Int.print() = println(this) 5.print() // prints 5
Extend Android classes:
fun Context.toast(text: CharSequence, duration: Int = Toast.LENGTH_SHORT): Toast { return Toast.makeText(this, text, duration).apply { show() } } toast("Hello Toast")
Extend your own classes:
class AquariumPlant( val color: String) fun AquariumPlant.print() = println("Pretty Aquarium Plant") val plant = AquariumPlant("green") plant.print() // prints -> Pretty Aquarium Plant
When you've completed the course, you will be able to create programs in Kotlin, taking advantage of the features and capabilities that make Kotlin unique.
Go learn how to build apps with less code at https://www.udacity.com/course/ud9011.
Posted by Jocelyn Becker, Senior Program Manager, Android Training
As one of our most popular Udacity courses, the Developing Android Apps course was recently updated to ensure developers have the resources to build high quality apps. This course, which has already helped more than half a million developers learn to build Android apps, has been through the car wash and come out sparkling clean and updated.
Google and Udacity have worked together to update the course to include the very latest changes in Android and Android Studio, including how to use the new Constraint Layout editor, and how to use Firebase Job Dispatcher. Learn best practices for building Android apps using Android 7.0 (Nougat) while keeping your apps backwards compatible in older versions, learning at your own pace in your own time.
You sent us feedback that some of the lessons were a little difficult to get through, so we've restructured the lessons and added smaller apps for you to build as you progress through the course. So not only will you build the Sunshine weather app as a complete, integrated application that spans the entire course, but you'll also create an app in each lesson to help you learn individual concepts.
Combined package for Developing Android Apps course and Associate Android Developer Certification
This updated course teaches the skills that are tested by the Associate Android Developer certification exam. Udacity is offering a package that combines the updated Developing Android Apps course with a voucher for the Associate Android Developer certification exam. If you pass this exam, you will earn the Associate Android Developer Certification and show that you are competent and skilled in tasks that an entry-level Android developer typically performs. Enroll in Udacity's Fast Track to get prepared and take the Associate Android developer exam at: https://www.udacity.com/course/nd818.
Posted by Shanea King-Roberson, Lead Program Manager Twitter: @shaneakr Instagram: @theshanea
Do you have an idea for an app but you don’t know where to start? There are over 1 billion Android devices worldwide, providing a way for you to deliver your ideas to the right people at the right time. Google, in partnership with Udacity, is making Android development accessible and understandable to everyone, so that regardless of your background, you can learn to build apps that improve the lives of people around you.
Enroll in the new Android Basics Nanodegree. This series of courses and services teaches you how to build simple Android apps--even if you have little or no programming experience. Take a look at some of the apps built by our students:
The app "ROP Tutorial" built by student Arpy Vanyan raises awareness of a potentially blinding eye disorder called Retinopathy of Prematurity that can affect newborn babies.
And user Charles Tommo created an app called “Dr Malaria” that teaches people ways to prevent malaria.
With courses designed by Google, you can learn skills that are applicable to building apps that solve real world problems. You can learn at your own pace to use Android Studio (Google’s official tool for Android app development) to design app user interfaces and implement user interactions using the Java programming language.
The courses walk you through step-by-step on how to build an order form for a coffee shop, an app to track pets in a shelter, an app that teaches vocabulary words from the Native American Miwok tribe, and an app on recent earthquakes in the world. At the end of the course, you will have an entire portfolio of apps to share with your friends and family.
Upon completing the Android Basics Nanodegree, you also have the opportunity to continue your learning with the Career-track Android Nanodegree (for intermediate developers). The first 50 participants to finish the Android Basics Nanodegree have a chance to win a scholarship for the Career-track Android Nanodegree. Please visit udacity.com/legal/scholarship for additional details and eligibility requirements. You now have a complete learning path to help you become a technology entrepreneur or most importantly, build very cool Android apps, for yourself, your communities, and even the world.
All of the individual courses that make up this Nanodegree are available online for no charge at udacity.com/google. In addition, Udacity provides paid services, including access to coaches, guidance on your project, help staying on track, career counseling, and a certificate upon completion for a fee.
You will be exposed to introductory computer science concepts in the Java programming language, as you learn the following skills.
To enroll in the Android Basics Nanodegree program, click here.
See you in class!
Sarah Clark, Program Manager, Google Developer Training
Front-end web developers face challenges when using common “asynchronous” requests. These requests, such as fetching a URL or reading a file, often lead to complicated code, especially when performing multiple actions in a row. How can we make this easier for developers?
Javascript Promises are a new tool that simplifies asynchronous code, converting a tangle of callbacks and event handlers into simple, straightforward code such as: fetch(url).then(decodeJSON).then(addToPage)...
fetch(url).then(decodeJSON).then(addToPage)...
Promises are used by many new web standards, including Service Worker, the Fetch API, Quota Management, Font Load Events,Web MIDI, and Streams.
We’ve just opened up a online course on Promises, built in collaboration with Udacity. This brief course, which you can finish in about a day, walks you through building an “Exoplanet Explorer” app that reads and displays live data using Promises. You’ll also learn to use the Fetch API and finally kiss XMLHttpRequest goodbye!
This short course is a prerequisite for most of the Senior Web Developer Nanodegree. Whether you are in the paid Nanodegree program or taking the course for free, won’t you come learn to make your code simpler and more reliable today?
Posted by Wayne Piekarski, Developer Advocate
Android Auto brings the Android platform to the car in a way that’s optimized for the driving experience, allowing the user to keep their hands on the wheel, and their eyes on the road. To learn how to extend your existing media and messaging apps to work within a car, we collaborated with Udacity to introduce a new course on Ubiquitous Computing with Android Auto.
Designed by Developer Advocates from Google, the course shows you how to take advantage of your existing Android knowledge to work on this new platform. The best part is that Android Auto is based on extensions to the regular Android framework, so you don't need to rewrite your existing apps to support it. You'll learn how to implement messaging apps, by using Notification extensions. You'll also learn how audio players just work on Android Auto when you use the Android media APIs. In both cases, we work through some simple Android samples, and then show what changes are needed to extend them for Android Auto. Finally, we show a complete music playing sample, and how it works across other platforms like Android Wear.
If you have an interest in Android-based messaging or media apps, then you need to learn about Android Auto. Users want to be able to take their experience to other places, such as their cars, and not just on their phones. Having Auto support will allow you to differentiate your app, and give users another reason to try it.
This class is part of our larger series on Ubiquitous Computing across Google platforms, such as Android Wear, Android Auto, Android TV, and Google Cast. Designed as short, standalone courses, you can take any course on its own, or take them all! The Android Auto platform is a great opportunity to add functionality that will distinguish your app from others. This Udacity course will get you up to speed quickly with everything you need to get started.
Get started now and try it out at no cost, your users are waiting!
We recently released a new Udacity course on Ubiquitous Computing with Android Wear, built as a collaboration between Udacity and Google. Android Wear watches allow users to get access to their information quickly, with just a glance, using an always-on display. By taking this course, you will learn everything you need to know to reach your users with notifications, custom watch faces, and even full apps.
Designed by Developer Advocates from Google, the course is a practical approach to getting started with Android Wear. It takes you through code snippets, and deep dives into sample code, showing you how easy it is to extend your existing Android apps to work on Android Wear. It also covers how to design user interfaces and great experiences for this unique wearable platform, which is important because the interface of the watch needs to be glanceable and unobtrusive for all day use.
This class is part of our larger series on Ubiquitous Computing across Google platforms, such as Android Wear, Android Auto, Android TV, and Google Cast. Designed as short, standalone courses, you can take any course on its own, or take them all! The Android Wear platform is a great opportunity to add functionality that will distinguish your app from others; and this Udacity course will get you up to speed quickly and easily.
Originally posted on Google Developers Blog
Posted by Shanea King-Roberson, Program Manager
As a developer, writing your app is important. But even more important is getting it into the hands of users. Ideally millions of users. To that end, you can now learn what it takes to design, validate, prototype, monetize, and market app ideas from the ground up and grow them into a scalable business with the new Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree.
Designed by Google in partnership with Udacity, the Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree, takes 4-7 months to complete. We have teamed up with most successful thought leaders in this space to provide students with a unique and battle-tested perspective. You’ll meet Geoffrey Moore, author of “Crossing the Chasm”, Pete Koomen, co-founder of Optimizely; Aaron Harris and Kevin Hale, Partners at Y-Combinator; Nir Eyal, author of the book “Hooked: How to build habit forming products” and co-founder of Product Hunt; Steve Chen, Co-Founder of YouTube, rapid prototyping company InVision and many more.
All of the content that make up this nanodegree is available online for free at udacity.com/google. In addition, Udacity provides paid services, including access to coaches, guidance on your project, help staying on track, career counseling, and a certificate when you complete the nanodegree.
The Tech Entrepreneur offering will consist of the following courses:
Upon completion, students will receive a joint certificate from Udacity and Google. The top graduates will also be invited to an exclusive pitch event, where they will have the opportunity to pitch their final product to venture capitalists at Google.
Originally posted on the Google India blog
Posted by Peter Lubbers, Senior Program Manager, Google
With a vision to transform India into a hub of high-quality mobile developers for global and local apps, we’re delighted to announce the launch of a program to offer Android Developer Nanodegrees in India in partnership with Udacity. The Android Nanodegree is an education credential that is designed to help developers learn new skills and advance their careers in a few months—from anywhere on any device—at their own pace.
The Udacity Android Nanodegree program comprises of courses developed and taught by expert Google instructors from the Google Developer Relations team and will include project reviews, mentorship and career services from Udacity. The curriculum will be updated regularly with new releases and will provide developers with a certificate that will help them to be a more marketable Android developer.
With 3 million software developers, India is already the second largest developer population in the world, but we still lag behind in creating world-class apps. With the launch of this program we want to bridge the gap by providing India’s developer community with an easy way to learn and build high quality apps for the world. Today, only less than 2% of apps built in India feature in top 1000 apps globally and our goal is to raise this to 10% in next three years.
The Udacity Android Nanodegree program is open for enrollment from today. The program takes an average of 6-9 months to complete and costs Rs. 9,800 per month with Udacity refunding 50 percent of the tuition upon completion. Google and Tata Trusts have partnered to give 1000 scholarships for the Android Nanodegree to deserving students and will be available from today. Interesting applicants can visit https://www.udacity.com/india for more information.
Speaking about their association with the Android Nanodegree program, Mr. Venkat - Managing Director of Tata Trusts said, “India has one of the youngest population of developers, where the average age of a developer is just 25 years old. While the last decade has established India as the largest provider of a skilled IT workforce to the world, there is an opportunity to help our young developers and equip them to compete on a global stage through educational and skill building programs. As part of our association, we’re glad to announce 500 free scholarships for the complete Android Nanodegree."
Posted by Nick Butcher, pixel pusher
What makes an app intuitive and easy to use? What makes it hard or frustrating? How can your app stand out in a competitive market? Learn the fundamentals of good Android design and the patterns that have proven to work on Android to help you to build better apps.
This 5-lesson series, available on Udacity, begins with a crash course on the fundamentals of Android UI design. It helps you to sort your DIPs from your pixels, to pick the right layouts and navigation structures and shows you how to style your app to match your brand. The rest of the course is a deep dive into the principles and implementation of material design to show you how to build beautiful consistent experiences that are right at home on Android.
Lesson 2 dives into the concept of tangible surfaces, and how they establish hierarchy to make your UI more understandable. Lesson 3 looks at applying bold graphic design, or how the principles of space, color, typography and imagery help you to create a beautiful, branded experience. Lesson 4 studies the use of meaningful motion to bring your apps to life and create a seamless and more intuitive experience. Finally, lesson 5 shows how adaptive design makes your app shine on any screen size.
Posted by Peter Lubbers, Senior Program Manager, Google Developer Training
We know how important it is for you to efficiently develop the skills to build better Android apps and be successful in your jobs. To meet your training needs, we’ve partnered with Udacity to create Android training courses, ranging from beginner to more advanced content.
Last week at Google I/O we announced the Android Nanodegree, an education credential that is designed for busy people to learn new skills and advance their careers in a short amount of time from anywhere at any time. The nanodegree ties together our Android courses, and provides you with a certificate that may help you be a more marketable Android developer.
All training courses are developed and taught by expert Google instructors from the Developer Platform team. In addition to updating our popular Developing Android Apps course and releasing Advanced Android App Development, we now have courses for everyone from beginning programmers to advanced developers who want to configure their Gradle build settings. And then there's all the fun stuff in between—designing great-looking, high performance apps, making your apps run on watches, TVs, and in cars, and using Google services like Maps, Ads, Analytics, and Fit.
Each course is available individually, without charge, at udacity.com/google. Our instructors are waiting for you:
You can also enroll in the new Android Nanodegree for a monthly subscription fee, which gives you access to coaches who will review your code, provide guidance on your project, answer questions about the class, and help keep you on track when you need it.
More importantly, you will learn by doing, focusing only on where you need to grow. Since the Nanodegree is based on your skills and the projects in your portfolio, you do not need to complete the courses that address the skills you already have. You can focus on writing the code and building the projects that meet the requirements for the Nanodegree credential. We’ll also be inviting 50 Android Nanodegree graduates to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, for a three day intensive Android Career Summit in November. Participants will have the opportunity to experience Google’s company culture and attend workshops focused on developing their personal career paths. Participants will then leverage the skills learned from Udacity’s Android Nanodegree during a two-day hackathon.
To help you learn more about this program and and courses within it, Google and Udacity are partnering up for an "Ask the Experts" live streamed series. In the first episode on Wednesday, June 3rd at 2pm PDT, Join Sebastian Thrun, Peter Lubbers and Jocelyn Becker who will be answering your questions on the Nanodegree. RSVP here and ask and vote for questions here.
We also believe that everyone has the right to learn how to develop Android apps. Today, there is a great need for developers in countries outside of the United States as software powers every industry from food and transportation to healthcare and retail. As a first step in getting the Android Nanodegree localized and targeted for individual countries, we have worked with the Government of Egypt and Udacity to create end-to-end translations of our top Android courses into Arabic (including fully dubbed video). Google will offer 2,000 scholarships to students to get a certificate for completing the Arabic version of the Android Fundamentals course. Google will also host job fairs and sessions for students with local employers and the Egyptian Government. For more information, see www.udacity.com/egypt.
Here are the currently-planned courses in the Android Nanodegree:
So get learning now at udacity.com/android
