Top 15 Mobile App Development Courses [Updated]

Are you interested in building mobile apps? Whether you're aiming to be an iOS or Android developer, mobile app development is one of the most rewarding careers in tech. To succeed, taking the right course is essential. With so many mobile app development courses available online, choosing the right one can be overwhelming.

This guide has selected the top 15 mobile development courses to help you go from a beginner to a proficient developer. All these courses offer certification upon completion, including the free ones.

3 Vital Things To Know Before Learning Mobile App Development

The journey to becoming an expert in mobile app development is knotty, especially if you're new to coding.

Before you start, here are a few things to know that'll make your learning easier:

1. Choose a Platform - the most prevalent software platforms for mobile devices are iOS and Android operating systems. They require different frameworks, and you can gain mastery in both fields.
2. Be Familiar with the Required Coding Skills - you must have basic coding skills to hone your craft in this career path. Opt for a mobile app development course if you have zero programming experience or an idea of object-oriented programming (OOP).
3. Master the Core Concepts of Mobile App Development - the Android and iOS operating systems have different concepts. Therefore, to specialize in iOS development, you must be familiar with the framework and tools used to create iOS applications.

5 iOS App Development Courses

iOS boasts 28% of the mobile market share, but it still ranks as the most valuable tech company in the world. Apple Store generates more revenue compared to Google Play Store. Listed below are courses that take you from a beginner to an expert iOS app developer.

1. Foundations of Objective-C App Development by Coursera

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $39/month
• Duration: 15 hours

This is a fragment of the iOS development for creative entrepreneurs' specialization. It's a foundational course that introduces you to Objective-C programming. You’ll learn how to organize code using objects and blocks. At the end of this course, you’ll be able to prototype several entry-level iOS apps.

2. SwiftUI Masterclass from Udemy

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $94.99
• Duration: 45 hours

With annual iOS updates, developers must stay abreast with recent trends to remain relevant. This course extensively covers the latest iOS app development topics: How to create an appealing user interface using SwiftUI, integrate the various iOS framework and core data with CloudKit, publish the app on the Apple store, and many more.

3. iOS & Swift — The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp from Udemy

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $100
• Duration: 60 hours

Currently, this course ranks as the highest-rated iOS development course on Udemy. Each lesson is incorporated with coding exercises, design assets, and course materials to streamline your learning journey. After this course, you’ll be able to wireframe, mockup, and prototype any iOS 13 app using Swift 5.1 programming language.

Recently, the modules were revamped to acclimate to Apple's latest technology — iPadOS, macOS, and SwiftUI iOS app interface design, CoreML, CreateML for machine learning, ARKit for augmented reality, etc.

4. Become an iOS Developer from Udacity

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $399/month
• Duration: 6 months

This nano degree covers the essentials of developing iOS applications using Swift programming and Xcode. Although it's beginner-friendly, experts seeking further knowledge in developing apps for iOS devices can also apply for this course.

You'll also learn how to create a user-friendly interface with UIButton, AutoLayouts, UI texts, UIKit, etc.; integrate networking into the apps; use APIs to retrieve data; and Apple’s Grand Central Dispatch (GCD).

5. CS193p - Developing Apps for iOS from Stanford University

• Skill level: Intermediate
• Price: Free
• Duration: 22 hours

Compared to the preceding courses, CS193p requires basic coding skills. It’s a practical course for developing iOS apps using SwiftUI. The first lecture starts with building a game. Then, you’ll proceed to more complex lessons — such as applying Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) architecture, Swift concepts of enums and Optionals, UIKit integration, Xcode 12, how to handle errors in the Swift programming language, etc.

6 Android App Development Courses

In 2021, gross revenue of $48 billion was generated via apps on Google Play Store. Considering technological advancements in the coming years, this value is predicted to increase by a huge margin.

Here are a few courses that will help you kick-start your career as an android app developer.

1. Android N: From Beginner to Paid Professional by Udemy

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $94.99
• Duration: 25 hours

If you’re a beginner with zero coding experience, this is the perfect mobile app development course for you. Mark Wahlbeck, the lead instructor, dissects the nitty-gritty of Android development into comprehensible parts. The course introduces you to Java and Android studio before more technical topics such as OOP, networking, JSON, and Firebase.

2. The Complete Android Developer Course: Beginner to Advanced from Udemy

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $94.99
• Duration: 17 hours

While taking this course, you’ll explore different layouts to design Android apps UI, how to add animations and transitions, save data in the database using SQLite, and many others.

For developers specializing in game development, you’ll learn the fundamentals of developing games for Android OS using Libgdx. The course is constantly updated, so you can always revert when you need to learn something new about Android development.

3. Build Your First Android App from Coursera

• Skill level: Intermediate
• Price: $49
• Duration: 22 hours

Every part of this course embraces a pedagogic approach to foster a seamless learning process. The instructors will walk you through developing the basic building blocks and how to customize them to build user-worthy apps. You’ll practically learn how to prototype, design, and code your first Android mobile application using Android Studio.

4. Android Basics in Kotlin from Google

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: Free
• Duration: 3 - 9 weeks

Aside from Java, Kotlin is another programming language for building Android applications. In this course, you'll learn the essentials of building an Android application from start to finish.

The course starts with the basics of Android development, such as scoping required functionalities in the app, app designing, and ultimately optimizing the app for excellent UX. Lessons on navigation, SQL, and Room Library are also included.

5. Android Basics from Udacity

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $399/ month
• Duration: 6 months

In collaboration with Google, Udacity curated this course to equip beginners with the necessary skills to create Android mobile applications. It aims at enlightening learners on transforming ideas into real-life app designs using the XML markup language. The tutors also exemplify the various Web APIs, how to use them, the basics of OOP, how to show multiple screens to an app, and other necessities for building an android app.

6. Android App Development Specialization from Coursera

• Skill level: Beginner
• Price: $399
• Duration: 6 months

This is one of the best self-paced courses on Android app development. It encapsulates 5 mini-courses that enable learners to master the major skills required to develop a maintainable mobile Android app. This includes Android studio tools, unit testing using JUnit and Robotium, user interface testing, Android studio development, object-oriented programming, java programming, file I/O, and others. Each course in this specialization is integrated with hands-on projects and resources that allow you to gain mastery of your new skill.

3 iOS and Android Mobile App Development course

React Native and Flutter are frameworks for developing cross-platform applications. Here, you'll discover a few certifications that'll help you gain mastery in both.

1. The Complete React Native + Hooks Course from Udemy

• Skill Level: Intermediate
• Price: $94.99
• Duration: 38 hours

Here, you’ll learn how to build React components for Android and iOS applications using React Native. You’ll also master the core fundamentals, including event handling, props, state, and JSX. The source code for these features is included in each lecture.

2. The Ultimate React Native Series from Code with Mosh

• Skill Level: Beginner
• Price: $19
• Duration: 12 hours

This course is ideal for beginners, javascript engineers, or developers who want to add React Native to their skillset. It is segmented into 2 parts: basics and advanced topics. In the basic section, you’ll learn the fundamentals of React Native development. In the other section, the lessons are more advanced. You’ll understand how to implement navigation using React navigation, log and monitor errors, communicate with REST APIs, build offline apps, and much more.

3. The Complete Flutter Development Bootcamp with Dart from Udemy

• Skill Level: Beginner
• Price: $94.99
• Duration: 29 hours

This is another self-paced mobile app dev course created by Angela Yu in collaboration with the Google Flutter team. It extensively covers all the fundamentals of the Flutter framework — Widget tree, state management, Stateful vs. Stateless widgets, etc. By the end of this course, you'll be able to build iOS and Android apps with Dart programming language.

Windows App Development Course

In this section, we highlighted the right course to educate you on developing, testing, and deploying Windows applications.

C# For Beginners - Make Windows Apps By Skillshare

• Skill Level: Beginner
• Price: $13.99/month
• Length: 2 hours of videos

In this course, you’ll learn how to program mobile applications for Windows OS and identify primary and advanced problem-solving techniques for mobile applications. However, basic knowledge of C# is a prerequisite.

FAQs

Q1. Can I teach myself app development?

Yes, you can learn app development on your own. The courses listed above are self-paced with comprehensible modules. Each has supporting resources — articles, eBooks, code libraries, etc. — to streamline your learning process. You can also create your own projects to develop your skills.

Q2. What coding language is used for apps?

The major coding languages for native apps are Kotlin and Java (Android OS), Objective-C, and Swift (iOS). Flutter and React Native are required for building cross-platform apps.

Q3. Is it hard to create an app?

Yes, creating an app will be slightly challenging if you're a beginner. This also depends on the complexities of the app features and the end product. The entire process can take 12-18 weeks, according to Proto.