Tag Archives: Android Emulator

Android Studio Iguana is stable

Posted by Neville Sicard-Gregory – Senior Product Manager, Android Studio

Today we are launching Android Studio Iguana 🦎 in the stable release channel to make it easier for you to create high quality apps. With features like Version Control System support in App Quality Insights, to the new built-in support to create Baseline Profiles for Jetpack Compose apps, this version should enhance your development workflow as you optimize your app. Download the latest version today!

Check out the list of new features in Android Studio Iguana below, organized by key developer flows.

Debugging

Version control system integration in App Quality Insights

When your release build is several commits behind your local source code, line numbers in Firebase Crashlytics crash reports can easily go stale, making it more difficult to accurately navigate from crash to code when using App Quality Insights. If you’re using git for your version control, there’s now a solution to this problem.

When you build your app using Android Gradle Plugin 8.3 or later and the latest version of the Crashlytics SDK, AGP includes git commit information as part of the build artifact that is published to the Play Store. When a crash occurs, Crashlytics attaches the git information to the report, and Android Studio Iguana uses this information to compare your local checkout with the exact code that caused the crash from your git history.

After you build your app using Android Gradle Plugin 8.3 or higher with the latest Crashlytics SDK, and publish it, new crash reports in the App Quality Insights window let you either navigate to the line of code in your current git checkout or view a diff report between the current checkout and the version of your app codebase that generated the crash report. Learn more.

App Quality Insights with Version Control System Integration

View Crashlytics crash variants in App Quality Insights

Crash variants in App Quality Insights

Today, when you select a Crashlytics issue in App Quality Insights, you see aggregated data from events that share identical points of failure in your code, but may have different root causes. To aid in your analysis of the root causes of a crash, Crashlytics now groups events that share very similar stack traces as issue variants. You can now view events in each variant of a crash report in App Quality Insights by selecting a variant from the dropdown. Alternatively, you can view aggregate information for all variants by selecting All.

Design

Jetpack Compose UI Check

To help developers build adaptive and accessible UI in Jetpack Compose, Iguana introduces a new UI Check mode in Compose Preview. This feature works similarly to visual linting and accessibility checks integrations for views. Activate Compose UI check mode to automatically audit your Compose UI and check for adaptive and accessibility issues across different screen sizes, such as text that's stretched on large screens or low color contrast. The mode highlights issues found in different preview configurations and lists them in the problems panel.

Try it out by clicking the UI Check icon in Compose Preview.

UI Check entry point in Compose Preview

UI Check results of Reply App in Compose Preview

Progressive rendering for Compose Preview

Compose Previews in Android Studio Iguana now implement progressive rendering, allowing you to iterate on your designs with less loading time. This feature automatically lowers the detail of out-of-view previews to boost performance, meaning you can scroll through even the most complex layouts without lag.

Progressive Rendering in Compose

Develop

Intellij Platform Update

Android Studio Iguana includes the IntelliJ 2023.2 platform release, which has many new features such as support for GitLab, text search in Search Everywhere, color customization updates to the new UI and a host of new improvements. Learn more.

Testing

Baseline Profiles module wizard

Many times when you run an Android app for the first time on a device, the app can appear to have a slow start time because the operating system has to run just-in-time compilation. To improve this situation, you can create Baseline Profiles that help Android improve aspects like app start-up time, scrolling, and navigation speed in your apps. We are simplifying the process of setting up a Baseline Profile by offering a new Baseline Profile Generator template in the new module wizard (File > New > New Module). This template configures your project to support Baseline Profiles and employs the latest Baseline Profiles Gradle plugin, which simplifies setup by automating required tasks with a single Gradle command.

Baseline Profile Generator

Furthermore, the template creates a run configuration that enables you to generate a Baseline Profile with a single click from the "Select Run/Debug Configuration" dropdown list.

Generate Baseline Profile drop-down menu

Test against configuration changes with the Espresso Device API

Synchronous testing of window size changes using Espresso Device API

Catch layout problems early and ensure your app delivers a seamless user experience across devices and orientations. The Espresso Device API simulates how your app reacts to configuration changes—such as screen rotation, device folding/unfolding, or window size changes—in a synchronous way on virtual devices. These APIs help you rigorously test and preemptively fix issues that frustrate users so you build more reliable Android apps with confidence. These APIs are built on top of new gRPC endpoints introduced in Android Emulator 34.2, which enables secure bidirectional data streaming and precise sensor simulation.

Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro devices in Android Emulator (34.2)

Test your app on the latest Google Pixel device configurations with the updated Android Virtual Device definitions in Android Studio. With Android Studio Iguana and the latest Android Emulator (34.2+), access the Pixel Fold, Pixel Tablet, Pixel 7a, Pixel 8, and Pixel 8 Pro. Validating your app on these virtual devices is a convenient way to ensure that your app reacts correctly to a variety of screen sizes and device types.

New Pixel Android Virtual Devices in the Android Emulator.

Build

Support for Gradle Version Catalogs

Android Studio Iguana streamlines dependency management with its enhanced support for TOML-based Gradle Version Catalogs. You'll benefit from:

Centralized dependency management: Keep all your project's dependencies organized in a single file for easier editing and updating.
Time-saving features: Enjoy seamless code completion, smart navigation within your code, and the ability to quickly edit project dependencies through the convenient Project Structure dialog.
Increased efficiency: Say goodbye to scattered dependencies and manual version updates. Version catalogs give you a more manageable, efficient development workflow.

New projects will automatically use version catalogs for dependency management. If you have an existing project, consider making the switch to benefit from these workflow improvements. To learn how to update to Gradle version catalogs, see Migrate your build to version catalogs.

Additional SDK insights: policy issues

Android Studio Iguana now proactively alerts you to potential Google Play policy violations through integration with the Google Play SDK Index. Easily see Play policy issues right in your build files and Project Structure Dialog. This streamlines compliance, helping you avoid unexpected publishing delays or rejections on the Google Play Store.

Android Studio's project structure dialog showing a warning from the Google Play SDK Index

A warning from the Google Play SDK Index in Android Studio’s Project Structure dialog

Android Studio compileSdk version support

Using Android Studio to develop a project that has an unsupported compileSdk version can lead to unexpected errors because older versions of Android Studio may not handle the new Android SDK correctly. To avoid these issues, Android Studio Iguana now explicitly warns you if your project’s intended compileSdk is for a newer version that it does not officially support. If available, it also suggests moving to a version of Android Studio that supports the compileSdk used by your project. Keep in mind that upgrading Android Studio might also require that you upgrade AGP.

Summary

To recap, Android Studio Iguana 🦎includes the following enhancements and features:

Debugging

Design

Jetpack Compose UI Check
Progressive rendering for Compose Preview

Develop

Intellij platform update

Testing

Build

Support for Gradle Version Catalogs
Policy issue warnings in Google Play SDK Index
CompileSDK version support

Download Android Studio Today

Download Android Studio Iguana 🦎 today and take advantage of the latest features to streamline your workflow and help you make better apps. Your feedback is essential – check known issues, report bugs, suggest improvements, and be part of our vibrant community on LinkedIn Medium, YouTube, or X (formerly known as Twitter). Let's build the future of Android apps together!

Source: Android Developers Blog

Run ARM apps on the Android Emulator

Posted by Michael Hazard

As part of the Android 11 developer preview we’ve released Android 11 system images, which are capable of executing ARM binaries with significantly improved performance. Previously, developers who were dependent on ARM libraries and could not build an x86 variant of their app either had to use system images with full ARM emulation, which are much slower than x86 system images when run on x86-based computers, or resort to physical devices. The new Android 11 system images are capable of translating ARM instructions to x86 without impacting the entire system. This allows the execution of ARM binaries for testing without the performance overhead of full ARM emulation.

The new Android 11 (Google APIs) x86 system image supports ARM ABIs, while the older Android Oreo system image does not

Details

The significance of this may require a bit of context, especially if you build apps exclusively with Kotlin or the Java programming language. Unlike Kotlin or the Java programming language, both of which execute on the Android Runtime (ART), any C++ in your Android app compiles directly into machine instructions. This means that it needs to be compiled differently based on the architecture of the target device. Mobile phones tend to have ARM processors; consequently, many C++ dependencies you might add to your app, like a camera barcode scanner library, are only compatible with ARM processors. This is a problem if you develop on a computer with an x86-based processor, as it would prevent you from running your app.

Previously, if you wanted to get around this limitation and execute an app built for ARM on your x86 machine, you would have had to use an emulator system image with full ARM emulation. Due to the overhead of translating an entire system’s worth of ARM instructions to x86, emulator system images with full ARM emulation tend to run much slower than x86-based system images when run on x86 host machines. Additionally, emulator system images with full ARM emulation cannot take advantage of the hardware acceleration and CPU virtualization technologies provided by x86 processors.

The new ARM-compatible Android 11 system images allow the entire system to run x86 natively and take advantage of virtualization technologies as usual. When an app’s process requires an ARM binary, the binary is translated to x86 within that process exclusively. This allows the rest of the process to continue executing in x86, including the Android Runtime (ART), and other performance-critical libraries like libGLES and libvulkan. In addition to this, the translator avoids expensive memory access instrumentation and the associated performance hit by avoiding the execution of low-level hardware-specific libraries. These new emulator system images can be used both locally and on your own continuous integration infrastructure. This is possible thanks to collaboration with ARM Limited.

Going Forward

If you have previously chosen physical devices over the emulator due to the lack of performant ARM support, try out the Android 11 system images, which are now available alongside the Android 11 Developer Preview. These system images can be downloaded in Android Studio via either the SDK Manager or the Android Virtual Device Manager.

Using the Android Virtual Device Manager to create an AVD that runs Android 11

Once you get your app running on the emulator, consider adapting it for Chrome OS. Chrome OS also supports the execution of Android apps built for ARM on x86 laptops. Building for Chrome OS provides access to a substantial ecosystem of larger screen devices, allowing your application to reach even more users globally.

This technology should enable more developers to test with the Android Emulator. That said, we still recommend that developers publish both x86 and ARM ABI variants of their apps to achieve the best physical device performance and reach as many users as possible. Going forward, we plan to roll this technology out across a wider variety of API levels and ensure that it supports testing all use cases that a physical device would. Given that this is a new technology, please let us know of any problems via our Issue Tracker.

Note that the ARM to x86 translation technology enables the execution of intellectual property owned by Arm Limited. It will only be available on Google APIs and Play Store system images, and can only be used for application development and debug purposes on x86 desktop, laptop, customer on-premises servers, and customer-procured cloud-based environments. The technology should not be used in the provision of commercial hosted services.

Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Continuous testing with new Android emulator tools

Posted by Lingfeng Yang, Android Studio team

Developers often use the Android Emulator during their day-to-day development to quickly test the latest changes before they are being committed. In addition, developers are increasingly using the emulator in their continuous integration (CI) systems to run a larger suite of automated tests. To better support this use-case, we are open sourcing the Android Emulator Container Scripts and improving the developer experiences around two pain points:

Deployability - finding and running the desired version of Android Emulator.
Debuggability - tracking down bugs from remote instances of Android Emulator.

Deployability

Android supports a wide variety of hardware and software configurations, and the Android Emulator is no different. However, this wide variety can create confusion over environment configurations. How should developers obtain emulators and system images? What drivers are required? How do you run with or without CPU or GPU acceleration? (etc. etc.)

To address this we have launched:

Android Emulator Download Script - This script provides the current up-to-date lists of emulator images (both AOSP and with Google Play Services) as well as emulators binaries (supporting Linux, Mac OS and Windows). You can integrate this with your existing continuous integration system. Going forward, we aim to enhance this service to enable downloading of deprecated versions in addition to the latest versions to make it easier to reproduce historical test results.
Android Emulator Docker image generator - Android system images and the emulator is only one part of the story. For environment, drivers, and pre-installed system dependencies, we put together a Docker image generator. This creates the complete environment in which the Android Emulator runs. After you start up the Docker image, 1) port forwarding and ADB, or 2) gRPC and WebRTC, makes interaction with the emulator possible. Currently, the Docker image generator is designed to work in Linux. We are also looking at Mac OS and Windows hosts, so stay tuned!

To increase reproducibility, the underlying Dockerfile template makes the required command line flags and system dependencies more explicit (and reproducible via building Docker images from them). For hardware acceleration, note the --privileged flag that is passed to run.sh; we assume CPU acceleration is available when running the emulator, and --privileged is needed to run the containers with CPU acceleration (KVM) enabled.

For more details on how to create and deploy the Android Emulator image, go to the README.

Debuggability

When the emulator is running and a test or the emulator fails, it can be difficult to dive into the running environment and diagnose the error. Often, diagnosis requires direct interaction with the virtual device. We provide two mechanisms for direct interaction:

ADB
Remote streaming

In the case of ADB, we allow all commands, such as logcat and shell, by forwarding a particular port from the Docker guest to the host. Because the current port is 5555, we'll need to collect more feedback and do more research on how best to separate ports across different containers.

Remote streaming

Security note: With remote streaming, keep in mind that once the service is started, anyone who can connect to your computer on port 80/443 can interact with the emulator. So be careful with running this on a public server!

With remote streaming, you can run the emulator in a container, which is as interactive as running locally. Running the emulator in a container makes it easier to debug issues that can be hard to discover using ADB commands. You can access the emulator using a browser with WebRTC, which is used to stream the video, and gRPC, which is used to send mouse and keyboard events to the emulator. Remote streaming requires three containers:

A container that hosts the latest emulator
A container with an Envoy web proxy needed for gRPC
A container with nginx to serve the React web app

You can compose the Docker containers together using docker-compose, as described in the README. The containers bind to port 80 and 443, so make sure you do not have a web server running. A self-signed certificate will be offered if you point the browser to the host. If you point your browser to the host you should see something like the image below:

Again, keep in mind that anyone who can connect to your host can interact with the emulator. So be careful with running this on a public server!

Let’s scale testing!

Testing can seem to be a tax on development time. However, as many seasoned developers have seen, proper automated testing can increase development velocity as the code base becomes bigger and more complex. Continuous testing should give you confidence that the change you make won’t break your app.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Moving Android Studio and Android Emulator to 64-bit versions

Posted by Sam Lin, Product Manager, Android

With Project Marble, the Android Studio team focused our efforts on making the fundamental features and flows of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) rock-solid. Performance is an underlying tenant to delivering a high quality IDE. To this end, we are sharpening our product focus and we will only support 64-bit operating systems going forward. Using Android Studio with an 64-bit operating systems enables efficient access to memory for both the IDE and the Android Emulator, and overall leads to a better development experience. While this change will not affect most Android Studio users, this change does have an impact if you use 32-bit versions of Microsoft^® Windows^®. To aid in this transition for those developers using 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows, we want to give you details on the upcoming depreciation timeline plus steps to take to be ready for this upcoming change.

Timeline

To minimize the impact of this change towards exclusively supporting 64-bit operating systems, we will first deprecate the 32-bit version. During the depreciation phase, both Android Studio and the Android Emulator will continue to work but the products will not receive new feature updates. During this transition period you can still download the product from the Android Studio web site. After one year, we will officially end product support and will remove the 32-bit product version download links. Note, if you have the 32-bit version of Android Studio previously installed during this period then the product should continue to work, but we will not provide a link for you to re-download the product. The exact dates for the depreciation and end-of-support period are in the table below:

Supported 32-bit Product Version	Deprecation from	End of Support on
Android Studio IDE 3.6	December 31, 2019	December 31, 2020
Android Emulator 28.0.25	Jun 30, 2019	December 31, 2020

Advantages of a 64-bit development environment

There are a few advantages to using a 64-bit version of Android Studio, which include:

Performance - The IDE can perform better because it can access more than 4GB of memory. The increase in memory especially provides a better experience when you are working on a large project.
64-bit App Support - You can build both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of apps if your app uses C/C++ native code. Testing on both architectures can help you to get ready for the 64-bit requirement on Google Play which starts on August 1st, 2019.
Testing on Emulators - Both the 32-bit and 64-bit Android Emulator system images are supported by the 64-bit version of the Android Emulator. This flexibility makes it easier to test your app in different Android environments with one development machine.

Next steps

To recap, before ending support for the 32-bit version of Android Studio, we want to inform you in advance, provide guidance, and allow for a one-year lead time to help you migrate to a 64-bit operating system. You can still use 32-bit versions of Android Studio, but be mindful that these version will not receive future updates. Therefore, if you want to migrate we suggest you start planning early so that you can continue to get the latest product updates and take advantage of the performance improvements of a 64-bit development environment.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Android Emulator – AMD Processor & Hyper-V Support

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

Since the major revamp of the Android Emulator two years ago, we have focused on delivering a fast and feature-rich emulator to help you build great app experiences for users. Today, the Android Emulator is the top device deployed to from Android Studio — more than 2x over physical Android devices. We are humbled to hear from many of you that the Android Emulator has come a long way, but we are not done yet.

Making the Android Emulator faster is one of the top priorities for the Android Studio team. Over the last few releases, we have launched quick boot & emulator snapshots for quickly starting and resuming emulator sessions in under 2 seconds. Up until now, our emulator experience has almost universally worked on macOS^® and Linux computers. But for users of Microsoft^® Windows^® or the Microsoft^® Hyper-V^™ platform, our hardware accelerated speed enhancements for the Android Emulator only worked with computers with Intel^® processors. Support for AMD^® processors and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor are two long-standing user requests from the Android developer community that we are happy to address with this Android Emulator update.

Today, you can download the latest Android Emulator release, which is enabled to run x86 based Android Virtual Devices (AVD) on computers that use AMD processors. This exciting update makes the Android Emulator more accessible to a new set of Android app developers that were previously limited to software emulation, but can now have hardware accelerated performance. Moreover, for those of you who use Hyper-V to run your local app backend, the Android Emulator can now also coexist with other Hyper-V-backed applications on Windows^® 10.

Thanks to a new Microsoft Windows Hypervisor Platform (WHPX) API and recent open-source contributions from Microsoft, even more Android app developers can take advantage of all the speed improvements and features in the Android Emulator.

Android Emulator running on Windows 10 with AMD Processor Screenshot Configuration: Asus ROG Strix GL 702ZC, Processor: AMD^® Ryzen^™ 7 1700 Processor, Chipset: AMD 5350, Graphics: AMD^® Radeon^™ RX580

Support for these technologies was initially available in the v27.3.8 Android Emulator canary release and today we are releasing this set of preview features (AMD processor & Hyper-V support) on the stable channel for more feedback. Alongside this update, we have added additional speed improvements in loading emulator snapshots for those developers using the Intel^® Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM).

How to use

Linux

If you use Linux for Android app development, the Android Emulator will continue to use the native Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor for both Intel and AMD based computers for a fast and performant virtualization solution. An update to the v27.3.8 Android Emulator will offer you the new snapshots UI along with improvements to performance, reliability and resource usage.

macOS

For OS X v10.10 Yosemite and higher, the Android Emulator uses the built-in Hypervisor.Framework by default, and falls back to using the Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM) if Hypervisor.Framework fails to initialize (such as when running on OS X v10.9 or earlier). Once you update to the latest Android Emulator on macOS, you will also have access to the new snapshots UI along with under the hood performance and reliability improvements.

Android Emulator - Snapshots Extended Controls

Microsoft Windows

On Intel x86-based computers, the Android Emulator will continue to use Intel HAXM by default. Intel HAXM is a mature and open-sourced hypervisor solution developed by Intel. Thanks to on-going development by Intel, the fastest emulator performance on Windows is still with Intel HAXM. To download the latest Intel HAXM v7.2.0, check for updates in the Android SDK Manager.

If you have an AMD processor in your computer you need the following setup requirements to be in place:

AMD Processor - Recommended: AMD^® Ryzen^™ processors
Android Studio 3.2 Beta or higher - download via Android Studio Preview page
Android Emulator v27.3.8+ - download via Android Studio SDK Manager
x86 Android Virtual Device (AVD) - Create AVD
Windows 10 with April 2018 Update
Enable via Windows Features: "Windows Hypervisor Platform"

Windows Hypervisor Platform setting in Windows 10

If you want to use Hyper-V at the same time as the Android Emulator on your Intel processor-based computer, you will also need the same Android Studio and Android Emulator versions as listed above, but with the additional requirements:

Enable via Windows Features: "Hyper-V" - Only available for Windows 10 Professional/Education/Enterprise
Intel Processor : Intel^® Core^™ processor that supports Virtualization Technology (VT-x), Extended Page Tables (EPT), and Unrestricted Guest (UG) features. Additionally VT-x needs to be enabled in the BIOS.

For more setup tips and troubleshooting details, check out the documentation page.

Again, for existing Windows users who have an Intel-based processor, the Android Emulator will continue to use the faster and recommended Intel HAXM configuration. For those using AMD processors, and those who use Hyper-V hypervisors, this should be an exciting step forward to start using the Android Emulator.

Next Steps & Feedback

Download the latest Android Emulator from the Android Studio 3.2 Beta SDK Manager for the latest performance updates across all supported platforms that you are using. We are going to continue to invest in performance improvements for each of the platforms and we look forward to your feedback and feature requests.

If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Connect with us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on our Google+ page or on Twitter.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Quick Boot & the Top Features in the Android Emulator

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

Today, we are excited to announce Quick Boot for the Android Emulator. With Quick Boot, you can launch the Android Emulator in under 6 seconds. Quick Boot works by snapshotting an emulator session so you can reload in seconds. Quick Boot was first released with Android Studio 3.0 in the canary update channel and we are excited to release the feature as a stable update today.

In addition to this new feature, we also wanted to highlight some of the top features from recent releases. Since the complete revamp of the Android Emulator two years ago, we continue to focus on improving speed, stability and adding a rich set of features that accelerate your app development and testing. With all the recent changes, it is definitely worth updating to the latest version of the Android Emulator to use it today.

Top 5 Features

Quick Boot - Released as a stable feature today, Quick Boot allows you to resume your Android Emulator session in under 6 seconds. The first time you start an Android Virtual Device (AVD) with the Android Emulator, it must perform a cold boot (just like powering on a device), but subsequent starts are fast and the system is restored to the state at which you closed the emulator last (similar to waking a device). We accomplished this by completely re-engineering the legacy emulator snapshot architecture to work with virtual sensors and GPU acceleration. No additional setup is required because Quick Boot is enabled by default starting with Android Emulator v27.0.2.

Quick Boot in the Android Emulator

Android CTS Compatibility - With each release of the Android SDK, we ensure that the Android Emulator is ready for your app development needs, from testing backwards compatibility with Android KitKat to integrating the latest APIs of the developer preview. To increase product quality and reliability of emulator system images, we now qualify final Android System Image builds from Android Nougat (API 24) and higher against the Android Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)—the same testing suite that official Android physical devices must pass.

Google Play Support - We know that many app developers use Google Play Services, and it can be difficult to keep the service up to date in the Android Emulator system images. To solve this problem, we now offer versions of Android System Images that include the Play Store app. The Google Play images are available starting with Android Nougat (API 24). With these new emulator images, you can update Google Play Services via the Play Store app in your emulator just as you would on a physical Android device. Plus, you can now test end-to-end install, update, and purchase flows with the Google Play Store.

Performance Improvements - Making the emulator fast and performant is an on-going goal for our team. We continuously look at the performance impact of running the emulator on your development machine, especially RAM usage. With the latest versions of the Android Emulator, we now allocate RAM on demand, instead of allocating and pinning the memory to the max RAM size defined in your AVD. We do this by tapping into the native hypervisors for Linux (KVM) and macOS^® (Hypervisor.Framework), and an enhanced Intel^® HAXM (v6.2.1 and higher) for Microsoft^® Windows^®, which uses the new on-demand memory allocation.

Additionally, over the last several releases, we have improved CPU and I/O performance while enhancing GPU performance, including OpenGL ES 3.0 support. Looking at a common task such as ADB push highlights the improvements in the Android CPU and I/O pipelines:

ADB Push Speed Comparison with Android Emulator

For GPU performance, we created a sample GPU emulation stress test app to gauge improvements over time. We found that the latest emulator can render higher frame rates than before, and it is one of the few emulators that can render OpenGL ES 3.0 accurately per the Android specification.

GPU Emulation Stress Test - Android App

GPU Emulation Stress Test with Android Emulator

More Features

In addition to these major features, there are a whole host of additional features that we have added to the Android Emulator over the last year that you may not be aware of:

Wi-Fi support - Starting with API 24 system images, you can create an AVD that both connects to a virtual cellular network and a virtual Wi-Fi Access Point.
Google Cast support - When using a Google Play system image, you can cast screen and audio content to Chromecast devices on the same Wi-Fi network.
Drag and drop APKs & files - Simply drag an APK onto the Android Emulator window to trigger an app install. Also you can drag any other data file and find it in the /Downloads folder in your Android Virtual Device.
Host copy & paste - You can copy & paste text between the Android Emulator and your development machine.
Virtual 2-finger pinch & zoom - When interacting with apps like Google Maps, hold down the Ctrl Key (on Microsoft^® Windows^® or Linux) or ⌘ (on macOS^® ) , and a finger overlay appears on screen to aid with pinch & zoom actions.
GPS location - Manually select a GPS point or set of GPS points under the Location tab of the Android Emulator.
Virtual sensors - There is a dedicated page in the extended controls panel that has supported sensors in the Android Emulator including acceleration, rotation, proximity and many more.
WebCam support - You can use a webcam or your laptop built-in webcam as a virtual camera in the AVD. Validate your AVD camera settings in the Advanced Settings page in the AVD Manager.
Host machine keyboard - You can use your real keyboard to enter text into the Android Virtual Device.
Virtual SMS and phone calls - In the extended controls panel, you can trigger a virtual SMS or phone call to test apps with telephony dependencies.
Screen zooming - On the main toolbar, click on the magnify glass icon to enter zoom mode, and then select a region of the screen you want to inspect.
Window resizing - Simply drag a corner of the Android Emulator window to change to the desired size.
Network proxy support - Add a custom HTTP proxy for your Android Emulator session by going to the Settings page under the Proxy tab.
Bug reporting - You can quickly generate a bug report for your app by using the Bug Report section in the extended controls panel to share with your team or to send feedback to Google.

Learn more about the Android Emulator in the Emulator documentation.

Getting Started

All of these features and improvements are available to download and use now with Android Emulator v27.0.2+, which you can get via the SDK Manager in Android Studio. For a fast experience, we recommend creating and running the x86 version of emulator system images, with the latest Android Emulator, Intel® HAXM (if applicable) and graphics drivers installed.

We appreciate any feedback on things you like, issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug, issue, or have a feature request feel free to file an issue. We are definitely not done, but we hope you are excited about the improvements so far.