I know for Android java is the main way to go. I do stat programming but don’t know java. If you develop phone apps what language/package do you use? Mainly interested in Android but might do an iphone app too.
I use Android Studio - free and effective.
I do mobile development with React Native. It is JavaScript based and works cross platform on Android and IOS. That’s not the only non-Java solution either.
Android studio is more than sufficient IDE for development.
I do all my work on a Mac though. I consider it pretty much a must for iOS development.
Kotlin is rapidly overtaking Java as the language of choice for Android and is now Google’s preferred language for Android development. It is a more modern language with several features that make it a better choice IMHO.
It’s possible to write Android apps in other languages but you lose access to some features. For example, here’s an article showing how to do some C++ stuff in Android.
But any language that can easily work with Android’s structure will be close enough to Java or Kotlin that you should just dive into one of those. Preferably the latter.
The language details isn’t the main issue. It’s the IDEs/packages/libraries/make/etc. stuff that have the biggest learning curve for someone who already knows a bit of programming. IDE’s help a ton but they aren’t obvious to newbies how they work.
Just to be contrary, I’d point out that Flutter is a thing that exists for making cross-platform apps.
I’ve made a couple apps by myself in the past using Java in Android Studio. These are just apps for myself and family who have Android phones so Android Studio seemed like the way to go. Right now I’m working on an app with a team using React Native. The team wanted to develop for both Android and iPhone so we decided on React Native.