This is a follow up to another article I created recently, where I made the case that courses that claim to teach you how to write the next Instagram or Facebook app are really bogus. I didn't actually use the word bogus but that's what I tend to think about these courses. The reason for that is it's really not possible for you to write a Facebook or Instagram app and be taught how to do that in a single course. The reason for today's discussion is I want to clarify some questions raised by students relating to the type of content that I'm producing and how it differs from that other content in those other courses. Let's get started.
Let's go ahead and make a start on this, and I just want to be clear with the type of content that I create in my courses and how it differs from these other courses.
So firstly, one of the questions I had was a student asked "Okay Tim, if that's the case then how come you're showing us how to create a Flickr app?" The Flickr application that I do show how to create in the course gives you the options to basically store, search, and to retrieve images from Flickr, download them and display them in your Android application. It actually runs in an emulator there. Now this is the type of app that I actually show, and this is sort of like a mini-app if you will, it's a basic app that shows you the basic functionality of an Android app.
You can see clearly by looking at the functionality score that it's not a Facebook type application, it's not a sophisticated app, it hasn't got all the bells and whistles. The point of it is, when it comes down to it, this is the type of app you'll see being created or you're shown how to create these in those courses. There's really no course on the internet anywhere, no matter what it says on the sales page, or their flashy sales video, that's actually going to show you how to create a Facebook app. It's just not possible to do that.
The reason that I mention that in the previous article, the reason that's not possible, is that those products have hundreds of developers in some cases, working on them. And thousands of man years of development time go into those products, and compare that to you learning something for the first time, it's not realistic for you to be able to create and target that sort of functionality with your first application and a course can't teach you that.
The difference is, I'm pretty well upfront. I don't want to say anything negative about any other courses but I'm upfront with my courses and I tell you what you're gonna do, what you're going to learn, and that's with the how to's, the how to learn things, how things work under the hood, and how to point up with that complexity together is outside the scope of what you learn in my course and really any course for that matter. So what you'll get is apps similar to that Flickr app that I showed you earlier. You'll see how to put an app together and then sure over time you can add to that and you can start building some more sophistication, the basic parts you need to learn to put an app like that together, and you can start building on that over time.
So the reason again for this is, I just want to make it clear that it's really important when you're choosing any course, my courses or any other course, that you're getting what you think you're getting for your hard earned dollar. So you're not going to learn that. So no matter what the claims are on any course, I can vouch with 100% certainty, that you're not going to be able to create a Facebook type app, or Instagram, or whatever it is with your first course.
Yes, you might have something that might provide one or two elements of those applications, an example that again I used was the Flickr app. I mentioned that it had some basic functionality, it had the shell if you will of an application, it had a few things. But again, something like Facebook or Instagram or any of those other sort of complex products that are really sophisticated, they take years to put together, and it's something that you will learn over time.
Again, just to make it clear, I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't be targeting apps of that nature. By all means you can do that. Once you build your skills over a period of time you will be able to write far more sophisticated apps. So don't think for a minute that I'm trying to say you shouldn't be targeting this or I'm not suggesting you shouldn't be creating these apps. I just want you to go into any course that you see on the internet, irrespective of what their claims are, that you're going in with the right thought process.
Okay I'm not going to learn everything in my first course, I'm still gonna need to put in some work in this and it's gonna take me a while to build up to that sophistication level. All right, my rant is over for the day, hope you enjoyed it. So I hope that helped. If you've got any questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you.