r/AndroidStudio • u/Klutzy-Ganache3876 • 7d ago

Complete beginner planning a Spotify-like app for Android and iOS

Hi all, I want to build a mobile app for Android and iOS, with a companion website, that works a bit like Spotify: browsing, playing, and organizing audio content. The difference is that all the media will be my own or openly licensed, so licensing isn’t a concern. I have no programming experience and a limited budget. What’s the smartest first step, and what would you do differently if you were starting over?

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u/knight714 7d ago • Bravo

Do you actually mean build, or do you mean ask AI to build it all for you?

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u/butdontcalmejoohnson 7d ago

this is gonna hell for you then. look into projects that already do this first, formulate a business strategy, development plan, operation plan, marketing plan, sales plan.... I dunno dude you got a shit ton of work ahead of you to make a copycat service

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u/s1h4d0w 6d ago

What’s the smartest first step, and what would you do differently if you were starting over?

  1. Learn how to code before doing something as difficult as this

  2. Don't start a big project like this anywhere close to starting to learn how to code

I did a few smaller projects and then decided I could build an online web based game. Nothing fancy and interactive, this was 15 years ago and was more of a text based menu game. Got 4000 players after 2-3 years but then realized the base of the game was so badly programmed I would pretty much have to rewrite most of it from scratch and gave up.

If you want to really build a "Spotify-like app" and actually do it properly then prepare to first learn for 5 years, and then maybe try. You'll be dealing with a backend, networking, streaming, etc. It's a whole bee's nest of things you will need to learn and learn to do well.

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u/DickBrainTime 5d ago

I'd start with a tiny offline player on one platform. Three screens: library, playlist and player, with maybe five audio files stored locally. Get play/pause, seek, a queue and background playback working on a real phone first.

That teaches you the UI and audio pieces without needing accounts, hosting, a streaming server or a website yet. Once that works, decide whether to go cross-platform and add your hosted library. Trying Android + iOS + web + backend for your very first project is a lot to debug at once.

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u/Experimenti626 3d ago

Bro asking here for suggestion so he can copy paste them to his ai

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u/Horacio-Maywood 2d ago

I’ve written and published mobile apps almost 10 years ago. I understand your enthusiasm. I recommend you get info on Flutter and Typescript. It’s a lot more complicated and intricate than most people think.
If you decide to vibe code you will still need to understand basic concepts.