

Ask HN: How hard is it for an experienced iOS developer to learn Android? - magsafe

I&#x27;m an indie iOS developer with a successful, revenue generating app. Many users are asking for an Android version. What should I do? Learn Android myself or contract it out?
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on_and_off
If you enjoy learning a new technology and are open minded, I think it would
be very beneficial to do it yourself. It is always interesting to learn
another platform. The beginning will probably be rough : here is a whole
platform and you probably don't know anything about it. But at the end of the
day, you will find that most of the android development tools are on par with
iOS ones (with a few exceptions, an emulator is very good for non regression
tests, but not that much for development). You should probably check what is
the status of competitors on Android. It you have a complex product and
somebody has already spent years on a similar niche on Android, it might be
hard to compete. You should also be ready to totally rethink your UI/UX. Many
iOS apps make the error of the 1:1 adaptation of their app to Android and that
only lead to a ridiculous result (multiple back buttons on the screen,
ignorance of the share button, alien interaction patterns, ...). It takes a
lot of engineering time to do this kind of copy where you have to recreate all
your widgets on another platforms, with a negative result.

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k-mcgrady
After developing for iOS for around 4 years I tried my hand at Android. If you
don't struggle with learning new languages and frameworks it's not too
difficult. There's an initial steep learning curve but that was true with iOS.
Remember when you first had to figure out what the hell provisioning was?
Overall I still find Android more difficult to develop for and I don't think
that's my fault - I think compared with iOS it is more difficult but if you
have at least a few years software development experience, particularly on
mobile, then you should give it a shot.

Of course if you just want to get the app out quickly and never touch it again
it's probably a better business decision to got he contract route.

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bliti
The only difficulty is in learning the idiosyncrasies of the android
ecosystem. Let me know if you have any questions.

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duiker101
Depends on you if you are someone that enjoys learning a new technology or if
you only want to get it out...

