It's smart to create more courses to teach Android, but the Android developer evangelism team needs to do first demonstrate the value of learning Android.
I'm the head of growth at Bloc - we have an online bootcamp in Android development, and another in iOS Development, and have found there is MUCH greater interest in learning iOS.
One quantifiable metric - the CTR on ads about Learning iOS vs. Learning Android are nearly quadruple.
In my promotions of Bloc's Android course, we've told beginners that:
- learning Android is great because the Google Play store's app review cycles are shorter, allowing beginners to iterate on their apps faster.
- According to Gartner, by 2015 Android will represent over 50% of all devices (more than Windows, Windows Phone, iOS, OSX, and all others combined)
- and that by developing for Android, you can get your apps onto watches, TVs, set-top boxes, and a slew of new form factors that are emerging.
Despite all of this, we've found very little interest in learning Android. Would love some help from the Google team if anyone is reading this. I'm @trybloc or @prasid
The US developer culture seems to be very Apple-centric, so Google is fighting an uphill battle in US, and I don't think that's easily changed with a few marketing bullet points. In US, if one has a Mac (which most developers do), it's almost guaranteed to want an iPhone, too. If one has a Windows machine, maybe they'll want an Android phone, maybe they won't.
Of course, Google should still do more to promote Android to developers. However, it should be much easier to get developers from most of the other countries, since that's what the vast majority of people use there.
Hey Henry - I work at Bloc - we offer a web development apprenticeship and most of our students sound pretty similar to you - read HackerNews, immersed in tech, tried learning on their own and realized they needed a more robust program like a bootcamp - but didn't want to quit their job / don't have $13K to spend on a bootcamp.
