Building an app just got a lot easier thanks to Google’s release of Android Studio 2.0. Following the highly successful initial launch of its official integrated development environment (IDE) back in 2013, the Internet giant has now taken things to the next level with improvements to its Android Studio. With 1.6 million apps already inundating its Play Store, it’s clear that developers are already eager to build apps for Google, but now, things are about to get faster, higher quality, and just all around better.
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It’s the first update the IDE has received in about three years, and Google promises that “Android Studio 2.0 is the fastest way to build high quality, performant apps for the Android platform, including phones and tablets, Android Auto, Android Wear, and Android TV.” It’s an all in one solution, with a code editor, code analysis tools, emulators, and everything else you may need to build a fully functioning app. “If you are developing for Android,” Google says, “you should be using Android Studio 2.0.”
Among the new features are Instant Run, which allows you to instantly see how changes in your code affect your running app. Perhaps the most anticipated improvement, Instant Run will “keep you in a fast and fluid development flow,” increasing your “developer productivity by accelerating your edit, build, run cycles.”
There’s also the Android Emulator, which runs three times faster than the old version, and will allow you to push both apps and data 10 times faster to the emulator than to an actual mobile or wearable device. The emulator also has Google Play Services built-in, allowing you to examine API functionality.
The Cloud Test Lab Integration lets developers run their code anywhere, “easily testing on a wide range of physical Android devices in the Cloud Test Lab right from within Android Studio.” And of course, to help you keep your apps clean, there’s a GPU Debugger Preview now as well, which allows you to “uncover and diagnosis GL rendering issues by capturing and analyzing the GPU stream from your Android device.”
To check out the complete suite of new features with the release and associated details, visit the Android Developers Blog here.