To become a mobile app developer, there are five essential skills. Let's go over them one by one. There are basically two ways to build mobile apps, native or cross-platform.
With native development, we can build an app that runs only on a particular platform like iOS or Android. This approach gives us full control over the capabilities of the target platform, resulting in great performance and the best user experience. However, the downside is that if you want to build the same app for a different platform, we have to create a separate project in an entirely different language and ecosystem. This means two separate projects and two sets of bugs to fix.
That's where cross platform or multi platform development comes to the rescue. With cross platform development, we can reduce development time by reusing the same code for different platforms and potentially reduce bugs. Fixing a bug once means it's fixed across multiple platforms. Now for native development, we have a few options. For iOS we can use Objective C, which is an older language, or Swift, which is modern and preferred.
For Android we can use Java, which is a traditional language, or Kotlin, which is modern and preferred. For cross-platform development, the option depends on the framework or toolkit we use. There are several cross-platform toolkits like React Native, Flutter, Kotlin Multiplatform, Maui, and a few others. Let's dive into each one.
First off we have React Native, which was released by Facebook in 2015. This toolkit lets you build mobile apps using JavaScript and React, which is a popular library for building web user interfaces. Some big names using React Native include Microsoft Office, Skype, and even Facebook itself. Then we have Flutter, which is a Google product that came out in 2017. Flutter uses a programming language called Dart, which takes the best parts of JavaScript, Java, and C sharp. Some examples of apps built with Flutter are eBay, Alibaba, and Google Pay.
It's really powerful and gaining a lot of traction. Now let's talk about Kotlin Multiplatform. This is the newest player released by JetBrains, the same company behind tools like IntelliJ, PyCharm, and WebStorm.
In my opinion, the best IDEs in the world. It uses the Kotlin programming language, which is a modern language inspired by Java. Apps like McDonald's, Netflix, and Cash App are built with Kotlin Multiplatform. Finally, we have Maui, which stands for.NET Multiplatform App UI. Introduced by Microsoft.
Maui allows you to build native mobile and desktop apps using C sharp and.net. These days most companies prefer to use Multi-platform development to reduce their costs this means we can rule out native development for now and focus on cross-platform options Now which framework is the best? Well, there is no such a thing as the best framework Yes, there are people out there like our superstar highly opinionated developer. Mr John Smith who swears by react native, but there are others with a different opinion The reality is that neither of these frameworks is perfect.
Each has its own problems and quirks that you'll discover once you start building real applications beyond YouTube tutorials. And the reason for that is that they try to support two entirely different platforms at the same time. So, which cross-platform solution should you choose?
Well, it depends on two things. First, on what languages and technologies you're familiar with. For example, if you're a C-sharp developer, MAUI might be the easier route. If you know web technologies like JavaScript and react, you might want to go for react native.
It's an easier transition from web to mobile development The other factor is job opportunities They're often more jobs available for react native and flutter here You can see the number of open positions for different types of mobile app developers in the US now This is the current situation here and maybe different where you live. Maybe there are more job opportunities for a flutter developer So I recommend doing your own research rather than taking my or someone else's advice about route to choose. But realistically, if you're looking for a career in mobile development, you would have to choose between react native and flutter.
If you have basic web development skills react native is a better route. Otherwise, I would recommend flutter because dart which is the programming language that flutter uses is a nicer language to work with than JavaScript. It's more modern and doesn't have the quirks and weird parts you find in JavaScript.
So decide between JavaScript or dart and commit to a study plan. I believe if you dedicate three to five hours every day, you can learn the essence of either of these languages in about two months. To help you on this journey, I've created a free supplementary PDF that breaks down the specific concepts you need to learn for each skill. It also includes several project ideas to help you practice and apply what you have learned. It's a great resource to review your progress, find gaps in your knowledge, and prepare for interviews.
You can find the link in the description box. By the way, I have a bunch of tutorials on this channel and complete courses on my website if you are looking for structured learning. Again, links are in the description box.
The next thing you need to learn is a version control system like git. Git is not a programming language It's a tool we use to track changes to our code and collaborate with others git and github Which is a platform that hosts git repositories are essential for every developer now It has a ton of features, but you don't need to know them all for everyday use think of it like the 80-20 rule 80% of the time you use 20% of gets features one to two weeks of practice is enough to get up and running now building mobile apps often involves working with data structures and implementing complex algorithms. This is where a lot of self-taught programmers struggle because they try to skip ahead and learn more and more languages and tools without learning the fundamentals of computer science. Data structures and algorithms are critical subjects taught to computer science students, and they're often covered in tech interviews, especially at big companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. While you can skip this step and go to the next, As someone who has had the privilege of teaching millions of people, I highly recommend you not to overlook this step.
Otherwise, you're going to feel the pain later in your career. So spend one to two months studying classic data structures and algorithms. This will give you a strong foundation in programming and problem solving.
The next thing I would recommend learning, which again, a lot of self-taught developers miss, is design patterns. Design patterns are proven solutions to common software design problems. There are 23 classic design patterns documented in the book design patterns by the gang of four. Many of these patterns are used in mobile frameworks, so learning them will give you a deeper understanding of object oriented design principles and how these mobile frameworks work under the hood.
Now I have to tell you, this book is pretty old and written in C++. Honestly, it's a difficult read because many of the examples in the book are dry and not quite relevant to modern software. That's why I've created a very hands on and course on this topic where I use Java and modern examples found in applications we use everyday. You can see how design patterns are used to solve problems in modern applications.
Whether you want to take my course or use a different resource, I believe if you dedicate a few hours everyday you can have a pretty solid understanding of design patterns in about 2 months. Alright, the next thing you need to learn is a mobile framework which we talked about before. For dart, you should learn flutter, and for javascript you should learn react-native. Assuming you have a solid background in programming, you can learn either of these frameworks in about 2 months. So if you dedicate a few hours every day and follow this roadmap, you'll have the necessary knowledge to apply for an entry-level mobile developer job in about 8 to 12 months.
If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below. I'll do my best to answer you right here or in my future videos. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like and subscribe for more useful content.