In this section we are going to cover all the requirements that will help you become a better Android and iOS Developer. If you are going to pursue a career in  Android or iOS developer than you are in the right place to be guided all along the way. So lets get started .

Architecture & design 
The most common advice for developers is to just "get coding, and you'll figure it out along the way". But this may not be the best approach it comes to app development. The nature of the arena requires you to fixate on  device limitations more than other DevOps cycles. An excellent way to think about your role as an app developer is to make a successful marriage out of framework and design. So the least you can do to improve the accuracy of your Cupid's arrow is to understand the basic principles of app architecture and UI/UX. Once you have this down, you can start your development process on a clean slate - the secret recipe to creating apps that are easy to maintain,
upgrade and scale. As they say, beauty on the inside is synonymous with beauty on the outside. 
In the course of your journey as an app developer, you may work with a cross-platform team, a web team, a strictly native team, or all three and each one of you will be pushing your own agile trains, trying to meet the same deadlines! One thing 10 note about app-development that absolutely nothing is standardized and every platform has its pros and cons. Give yourself the freedom to learn what your app aims to achieve, and not what you're comfort able working with. Start thinking of yourself as an "Android-first developer" instead of a pure "Android developer". The faster you get used to this fact, the better your progress will be. While choosing app architecture, Native vs. Hybrid vs. Web is an age-old question, and to this day, there is no straight answer. The resources below give you a fair idea of how to choose your platform from  a large developer perspective. We stick to our guns when we say that alternatives to native development are not at peak right now. The real reason why any platform gets chosen over the other has always been balancing the budget, lime, and target market.

The basic checklist for iOS developers

A Mac laptop - Although there are alternatives to this like Hackintosh, serious iOS developers will eventually need a Mac. 'Nuff said. 

XCode- The native IDE on which you will build your masterpiece. There are some alternatives to XCode like Atom, AppCodee, CodeRunner and Swifty which offer various features that arc aimed at simplifying and  accelerating the coding process. Most are paid bill have flee trials. Once you are familiar enough with Xcode, you can try your hand at the alternatives to see if it suits your style. Remember that your IDE becomes your home, o it's purely a personal choice. 

Swift - The programming language for building macOS, iOS, and tvOS apps. Top resources to learn coding with Swift include Udacity, Code-Academy, Hacking with Swift, Code with Chris cocoa manifest and of course, Ray Wenderlich. 
Objective C - Swift's parent language. Before Swift was released in 2014, Objective C was thc primary language on which iOS apps were built. Swifting made a sweeping entrance, and most coders shifted to it, but then? am still a few legacies who prefer Objective C
simply because of comfort or sidetracking the hassle of transferring codebase. It's not strictly a necessity to hone your Obj-C skills. However, given that several third party libraries and frameworks are based on Obj-C, it would be silly to think that there are no advantages to mastering the parent language. 
 
Cocoa and Cocoa touch- Speaking of libraries You don't need to code everything from scratch. If you are an Obj-C first developer, use The Foundation Framework as your base library. Swift Standard library is for the Swift fanatics. Other libraries you want to keep handy include:

*SwiftToolbox - A Community maintained massive collection known for its handy search function 
*CocoaPods -18000 libraries are no joke. II's the most famous dependency manager for both Swift and Objective-C programmers. 
*RxSwift - Highly recommended for asynchronous programming .
*SwiftyJSON - The name says it all. 
 *Trending CocoaPods - Something to keep an eye on, it's a collection of the most used libraries that gets updated daily. 
Plugins - The icing 
Plugins are the functional furniture a nd home-décor for XCode. Much like real life, the list of choices here is never-ending. 
*Alcatraz - Plugin and package manager 
*FuzzyAutocomplete - Fixes issues with XCode's autocomplete feature 
*CoPilot - A must-have for collaborative coding
*Dash - An API browser 
*Showingithub - Takes you straight to the code's location in GitHub.

The basic checklist for Android Developers: 
When it comes to Android development, there arc actually no concrete rules several IDEs and languages to from to set up your basic skill set. Based on when you got interested in Android app development, you are likely to have been introduced to Android through the Xamarin. Ionic, React, Flutter or Kotlin. So you may already have your preference  set in stone. But there's only one route to transition towards becoming a serious Android developer, and that is to master Android Studio and Java. That being said, Kotlin has made leaps and bounds of progress and is the one unifying factor that the community has learnt to enjoy. So we suggest that equal importance should be given to both, keeping in mind that Google is pushing Kotlin forward as the go-to app for future deployments. For those who wish to remain cross-platform oriented, there's plenty of options out there now apart from the Xamarin and C# combination. React, and Flutter also offer powerful capabilities. Apart from these, having HTML and CSS in your toolkit won't go underutilized. Corona and Lua work well for the gaming community. We will address Unity when we talk about AR/VR. Some Android tools and libraries that can make the coder's life a little simpler. By no means is this list comprehensive: 
Genymotion - An Android emulator with over 3,000 device scenarios 
Gradle + J Rebel- Makes adding libraries a single-line code.

SourceTree - Manage GIT repositories with case 
Vysor- Another great Android emulator
Drawable Optimizer - Reduce APK size by optimizing image assets with this plugin 
Scalpel - The best tool for beginners to visualize layers. You need this if you think your code gets messy often. 
KeyPromoter - Use this app to speed up the process with which you get used to keyboard shortcuts 
Butterknife injections - Generates boilerplate code injections with Butterknife library. 
Awesome Android Libraries - Android libraries organized by function, name and licence.
Android Arsenal Libraries - A collection of free Android libraries.

Improving debugging and testing 
The prickly pain point for every developer. be it Android or iOS is to have a set regimen for the debugging process. But this is exactly the deciding factor that will make you stand apart from and the amateurs. Get your game face on and start running multiple tests, or your code will always remain a legacy. One way to do this is to invest in some quality automated testing tools. For iOS, XCode Test is itself quite good al handling debugging. But if you  want to speed up the process, you can go with Appium. Calabash, KIF or Bugfender, all of which are free Apart from these check Application Performance Monitoring tools like NewRelic, Dynatrace, Raygun and AppDynamics. APM tools let you analyzer hove robust your back-end code is, and also give you a clear picture of user satisfaction. With Android though, as the number of potential devices is higher, the testing capabilities need to be excited. So we have compiled a list of plugins as well as automation you can try out: 
Instabug - The preferred choice of PayPal, Lyft, Buzzfeed and Mashable, this nifty tools lets you beta lest and capture detailed error logs. 
LeakCanary - Detect memory leaks and improve stability 
NimbleDroid - NimbleDroid is one that is designed for use at the phinal phase, right before deployment. 
Stetho - Android debugging tool by Facebook 
Takt - Check FPS while debugging 
PMD - Cleans up your source code
Lint - Recommended by Google to ensure no structural problems
Express Monkey - Stress-testing 
21 - Fully SaaS A1 test creator with an incredibly powerful feedback 
Robotium - Free Android UI testing tool
Kobiton- Centralized testing tool with manual as well as automated functionality 
Experitest - Execute hundreds of automated tests parallel on cloud Android devices. with CI/CD workflow.

Practice makes perfect 
There's no workaround to this. Whether you are Android or iOS, you need to be able to live and breathe development if you want to rise to the creamy layers. That said, when your coding skills are strong enough though, you can take up freelance work or participate in the competition (these tend to be fewer) to keep your creative juices flowing, while making money! So here is a list of places you can do just that.

Freelancing: 
Upwork 
Valuecoders 
Developerforhire 
Gun.io 
Good ol' startups around the block (Find them at angel.co) 
 
Challenges and Competitions: 
Topcoder 
Programmr.com 
CodeProject.com 
Hackerearth
But that's not all. If you are not motivated by competition as much as you are by community, then immerse yourself in developer forums and communities and get active. Contribute to open-source projects as well. Make some great friends along the way, and you never know - you may just find the right clique to make the push towards entrepreneurship. Hem's where you can get started (+GitHub). 
*iosdevweekly.com 
*ios-gcxjdies.com 
*nshipstereom 
*objc.io
*Mike Ash's blog 
*r/ iOS Programming 
*Android GDEs 
*r/androiddev 
*Android-United.community

Deployment 
One of the main reasons that really good apps fail to climb the ranks (and then burn out because of no investments on updates) is simply because they aren't marketed well. It can' t be stressed enough how important getting your digital  marketing strategies on point is, so that you don't see yourself dejected after all the hard work. Make sure you set aside a budget just for digital marketing during the planning phase itself. To help you do that here is the digital marketing essentials kit. 

*A landing page.-While you don't need a website, you will definitely need a good landing page, and there are several channels out there where you can make one for fire. 

*Social Media: Mashable, Insta, Facebook, twitter, Behance and Dribbbl.  Make sure you're everywhere. And know how to push content on a regular basis, so that you get maximum visibility.  

*Influencers and affiliates: Pitch to tech-blogs (like digit) to push your app 

*PPC: Google, Facebook and Instagram offer great ad services. Set some money aside for this, just to gain initial momentum at the least. 

*Make use of the community forums mentioned above: Pitch your apps regularly. 

*Host a giveaway or freebies contest, to get noticed.