Google has just released a new video showing you how to get started with Android Studio - and as a seasonal touch it features zombies, no not zombie code, real zombies.

Why not have some fun when you make a tutorial video? Watching this one will show you the stages of installing and using Android Studio to get your first app running.  Even if you know how to do the job the video is still fun to watch by being a parody of app development.  

And yes, I think Meatr would be a more successful startup - and remember Tip #7: Always take the shovel.

If you really are a beginner, trying to get to grips with Android and Android Studio, then the video might help but only if nothing goes wrong. If it does then you can spend hours trying to get things to work even if you think you know what you are doing.

Android Studio has a tendency to be a bit fragile when it comes to the components it relies on. It is getting better but when you are trying to get started things can break. Then there is the small matter of waiting for the Android emulator to start. Now this is a real zombie problem. Where does it go while you sit and wait for it? When it does finally appear on the screen you still have to sit and wait for it to be ready to play with you.

One of the rights of passage of the beginning Android developer is discovering just how long everything takes and hence how long you wait before it is time to panic. 

Then there is the bigger problem of learning to create Android apps. This is the point where the zombie apocalypse starts to look like a walk in the park. Android has now grown to be a huge sprawling mess of parts and it might be fine for the video to say use the support libraries but this often isn't as easy as it sounds. Then there are the tools in Android Studio which are supposed to make things easier - they do but only 99% of the time. This might sound like a good ratio but fixing the 1% that go wrong can take as much time as you saved. 

Google needs to put some effort into cleaning up both the Android sprawl and Android Studio. 

Is Android development getting better?

Difficult to say. Android Studio is heading in the correct direction but it is slow progress. The Android Framework itself is now beyond a joke and you can spend a lot of time finding the right way to do even simple things. 

Finally what does:

mean exactly? It makes:

look obvious.

A tip we can add from I Programmer is that Android Adventures With Android Studio is a hands-on guide to creating apps that takes you from the beginning to well beyond the endpoint of this video .

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