I think you need to update your tutorial. It is not up to date and I am facing lots of problems. I will do what you said but I highly doubt that it will generate an apk. I will update once I am done.
Ok, So app worked and I make a signed app as shown in the description. But the app is not showing any data from my website, all pages are blank. When I run ionic serve, it shows all the pages after i close some errors.
I guess the issue is with the config.xml file .
Please replace the config.xml file in your ionic project folder with the given file :https://bit.ly/2GJQDxO
Can you please share your src folder to look into ?
Please also share your valid ftp credentials ,site url and admin credentials to check this issue properly . PS : please mark reply as private while sharing credentials .