I’ve always thought it would be fun to make an app — you know, build something actually useful, either for myself or for the wider world. But when you’re starting from absolutely nothing, the barrier to entry can seem pretty high. I don’t know the first thing about Kotlin, Java, or Swift (and yes, I had to look up common app development languages to write that). So, I accepted that dedicating time to building an app probably wasn’t in my future.
That is, at least, until Nothing stepped in. Everyone’s favorite black-and-white, semi-transparent Android brand decided that apps should be as personal as a sense of style, and that meant putting the power of creation into everyone’s hands. It added a new section to its community-built Playground, dubbed Essential Apps, and I got an early chance to start building.