There are literally millions of Android devices in the world including smartphones, tablets, media boxes and even digital cameras. And the great thing about Android is that you can develop apps for it completely for free. Unlike Apple, who charges developers an annual fee just to get hold of the software development kit, Google offers the Android development tools as a free download. You can write and build for Android all day long without it costing you a single penny.

If you have ever had the desire to write an app for Android you need to know a few things. First you need a Windows PC, Mac or Linux box to do the development on and second you need to know Java. If you know any C type programming language including C++, C# or even PHP then getting a grip on Java shouldn't be too hard. With a bit of Java and a computer to compile on you are ready to go.

So what's next? Fortunately Linux.com can help with the next step. A series of tutorials is being published by Juliet Kemp which covers the basics of Android programming and is aimed at beginners. There are three tutorials published so far:

1. Part1 takes you through the steps needed to create a simple Android app, in this case a basic countdown.
2. Part 2 develops the countdown app fuirther and adds a menu that lets you change the timer value
3. The unofficial part 3 looks at the ListView and ListActivity classes

There also are lots of other resources online for Android including Google's own Android docs plus various YouTube videos including some from the folks over at XDA:

• How to Build an Android App Part 1: Setting up Eclipse and Android SDK
• How to Build an Android App Part 2: Writing a Root App
• How to Build an Android App Part 3: Arduino Development
• How to Build an Android App Part 4: Illumination Software Creator
• How to build an Android App Part 5: Arduino ADK – Working with Digital Outputs

Have you tried programming for Android? What do you think?