Tag Archives: Android 2.0

Android Studio 2.0

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

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. As the official IDE from Google, Android Studio includes everything you need to build an app, including a code editor, code analysis tools, emulators and more. This new and stable version of Android Studio has fast build speeds and a fast emulator with support for the latest Android version and Google Play Services.

Android Studio is built in coordination with the Android platform and supports all of the latest and greatest APIs. If you are developing for Android, you should be using Android Studio 2.0. It is available today as a easy download or update on the stable release channel.

Android Studio 2.0 includes the following new features that Android developer can use in their workflow :

  • Instant Run - For every developer who loves faster build speeds. Make changes and see them appear live in your running app. With many build/run accelerations ranging from VM hot swapping to warm swapping app resources, Instant Run will save you time every day.
  • Android Emulator - The new emulator runs ~3x faster than Android’s previous emulator, and with ADB enhancements you can now push apps and data 10x faster to the emulator than to a physical device. Like a physical device, the official Android emulator also includes Google Play Services built-in, so you can test out more API functionality. Finally, the new emulator has rich new features to manage calls, battery, network, GPS, and more.
  • Cloud Test Lab Integration - Write once, run anywhere. Improve the quality of your apps by quickly and easily testing on a wide range of physical Android devices in the Cloud Test Lab right from within Android Studio.
  • App Indexing Code Generation & Test - Help promote the visibility your app in Google Search for your users by adding auto-generated URLS with the App Indexing feature in Android Studio. With a few click you can add indexable URL links that you can test all within the IDE.
  • GPU Debugger Preview - For those of you developing OpenGL ES based games or apps, you can now see each frame and the GL state with the new GPU debugger. Uncover and diagnosis GL rendering issues by capturing and analyzing the GPU stream from your Android device.
  • IntelliJ 15 Update - Android Studio is built on the world class Intellij coding platform. Check out the latest Intellij features here.

Deeper Dive into the New Features

Instant Run

Today, mobile platforms are centered around speed and agility. And yet, building for mobile can sometimes feel clunky and slow. Instant Run in Android Studio is our solution to keep you in a fast and fluid development flow. The feature increases your developer productivity by accelerating your edit, build, run cycles. When you click on the Instant Run button (), Instant Run will analyze the changes you have made and determine how it can deploy your new code in the fastest way.

New Instant Run Buttons

Whenever possible, it will inject your code changes into your running app process, avoiding re-deployment and re-installation your APK. For some types of changes, an activity or app restart is required, but your edit, build and run cycles should still be generally much faster than before. Instant Run works with any Android Device or emulator running API 14 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or higher.

Since previewing Instant Run at the end of last year, we’ve spent countless hours incorporating your feedback and refining for the stable release. Look for even more acceleration in future releases because build speeds can never be too fast. To learn how you can make the most out of Instant Run in your app development today, please check out our Instant Run documentation.

Android Emulator

The new Android Emulator is up to 3x faster in CPU, RAM, & I/O in comparison to the previous Android emulator. And when you're ready to build, ADB push speeds are a whopping 10x faster! In most situations, developing on the official Android Emulator is faster than a real device, and new features like Instant Run will work best with the new Android emulator.

In addition to speed and performance, the Android Emulator has a brand user interface and sensor controls. Enhanced since the initial release, with the emulator you can drag and drop APKs for quick installation, resize and rescale the window, use multi-touch actions (pinch & zoom, pan, rotate, tilt) and much more.

Android Emulator User Interface: Toolbar & Extend Controls Panel

Trying out the new emulator is as easy as updating your SDK Tools to 25.1.1 or higher, create a fresh Android Virtual Device using one of the recommended x86 system images and you are ready to go. Learn more about the Android Emulator by checking out the documentation.

Cloud Test Lab

Cloud Test Lab is a new service that allows you to test your app across a wide range of devices and device configurations at scale in the cloud. Once you complete your initial testing with your Android Emulator or Android device, Cloud Test Lab is a great extension to your testing process that provides you to run through a collection of tests against a portfolio of physical devices hosted in Google’s data centers. Even if you do not have tests explicitly written, Cloud Test Lab can perform a basic set of tests to ensure that your app does not crash.

The new interface in Android Studio allows you to configure the portfolio of tests you want to run on Cloud Test Lab, and allows you to also see the results of your tests. To learn more about the service go here.

Setup for Cloud Test Lab

App Indexing

It is now easier for your users to find your app in Google Search with the App Indexing API. Android Studio 2.0 helps you to create the correct URL structure in your app code and add attributes in your AndroidManifest.xml file that will work the Google App Indexing service. After you add the URLs to your app, can you test and validate your app indexing code as shown here:

Google App Indexing Testing

Check out this link for more details about app indexing support in Android Studio.

GPU Debugger Preview

If you are developing OpenGL ES games or graphics-intensive apps, you have a new GPU debugger with Android Studio 2.0. Although the GPU debugger is a preview, you can step through your app frame by frame to identify and debug graphics rendering issues with rich information about the GL state. For more details on how to setup your Android device and app to work with the tool, check out the tech documentations here.

GPU Debugger Preview

What's Next

Update

If you are using a previous version of Android Studio, you can check for updates on the Beta channel from the navigation menu (Help → Check for Update [Windows/Linux] , Android Studio → Check for Updates [OS X]). If you need a new copy of Android Studio, you can download it here. If you developing for the N Developer Preview, check out this additional setup instructions.

Set Up Instant Run & Android Emulator

After you update to or download Android Studio 2.0, you should upgrade your projects to use Instant Run, and create a fresh Android Virtual Device (AVD) for the new Android emulator and you are on your way to a fast Android development experience.

Using Instant Run is easy. For each of your existing projects you will see a quick prompt to update your project to the new gradle plugin version (com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.0.0).

Prompt to update your gradle version in your project

For all new app projects in Android Studio 2.0, Instant Run is on by default. Check out the documentation for more details.

We are already hard at work developing the next release of Android Studio. We appreciate any feedback on things you like, issues or features you would like to see. Connect with us -- the Android Studio development team -- on our new Google+ page or on Twitter.

Android Studio 2.0 – Beta

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

Android Studio 2.0 is latest release of the official Android IDE focused on build performance and emulator speed to improve the app development experience. With brand new features like Instant Run which enables you to quickly edit and view code changes, or the new & faster Android emulator, Android Studio 2.0 is the upgrade you do not want to miss. In preparation for the final release, you can download Android Studio 2.0 Beta in the Beta release channel. Overall, the Android Studio 2.0 release has a host of new features which include:

  • *Updated for Beta* Instant Run - Enables a faster code edit & app deployment cycle.
  • *Updated for Beta* Android Emulator - Brand new emulator that is faster than most real devices, and includes a brand new user interface.
  • *Updated for Beta* Google App Indexing Integration & Testing - Adding App Indexing into your app helps you re-engage your users. In the first preview of Android Studio 2.0 you could add indexing code stubs into your code. With the beta release you can now test and validate your URL links in your app all within the IDE.
  • Fast ADB - Installing and pushing files is now up to 5x faster using Android Studio 2.0 with an updated Android Debug Bridge (ADB) offered in platform-tools 23.1.0.
  • GPU Profiler Preview - For graphics intensive applications, you can now visually step through your OpenGL ES code to optimize your app or game
  • Integration of IntelliJ 15 - Android Studio is based on the efficient coding platform of Intellij. Check out the new features from IntelliJ here.

Check out the latest installment of Android Studio Tool Time video below to watch the highlights of the features.



New Features in Android Studio 2.0 Beta


Instant Run

We first previewed Instant Run in November; this latest beta release introduces a new capability called Cold Swap

Instant Run in Android Studio 2.0 allows you to quickly make changes to your app code while your app is running on an Android device or Android Emulator. Instead of waiting for your entire app to rebuild and redeploy after each code change, Android Studio 2.0 will try to incrementally build and push only the incremental code or resource change. Depending on the code changes you make, you can see the results of your change in under a second. By simply updating your app to use the latest Gradle plugin ( 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.0.0-beta2’ ), you can take advantage of this time saving features with no other modifications to your code. If your project is setup correctly with Instant Run, you will see a lightning bolt next to your Run button on the toolbar:


Instant Run Button

Behind the scenes, Android Studio 2.0 instruments your code during the first compilation and deployment of your app to your device in order to determine where to swap out code and resources. The Instant Run features updates your app on a best-effort basis and automatically uses one of the following swap methods to update your app:

  • Hot Swap - When only method implementations (including constructors) are changed, the changes are hot swapped. Your application keeps running and the new implementation is used the next time the method is called.
  • Warm Swap - When app resources are changed, the changes are warm swapped. This is similar to a hot swap, except that the current Activity is restarted. You will notice a slight flicker on the screen as the Activity restarts.
  • *New for Beta* Cold Swap - This will quickly restart the whole application. Typically for structural code change, including changes to the class hierarchy, method signatures, static initializers, or fields. Cold Swap is available when you deploy to targets with API level 21 or above.

We made major changes to Instant Run since the first preview of Android Studio 2.0, and now the feature works with more code and resources cases. We will continue to add more code change cases to Instant Run in future releases of Android Studio. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to send us a feature request and learn more about Instant Run here.

App Indexing

Supporting app indexing is now even easier with Android Studio 2.0. App Indexing puts your app in front of users who use Google Search. It works by indexing the URL patterns you provide in your app manifest and using API calls from your app to make content within your app available to both existing and new users. Specifically, when you support URLs for your app content, your users can go directly to those links from Google Search results on their device.

  • Code Generation Introduced in Android Studio 2.0 Preview, you can right click on AndroidManifest.xml or Activity method (or go to Code → Generate…→ App Indexing API Code) to insert HTTP URL stub codes into your manifest and app code.

  • *New for Beta* URL Testing & Validation What is new in Android Studio 2.0 Beta is that you can now validate and check the results of your URLs with the built-in validation tool (Tools → Android → Google App Indexing Test). To learn more about app indexing, click here.

Insert App Indexing API Code into your app

App Indexing Testing

App Indexing Test Results

Android Emulator

*Updated for Beta* The new and faster Android emulator also includes fixes and small enhancements for this beta release. Notably, we updated the rotation controls on the emulator toolbar and added multi-touch support to help test apps that use pinch & zoom gestures. To use the multi-touch feature, hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and right-click your mouse to center the point of reference or click & drag the left mouse button to zoom.


Pinch & Zoom Gesture with Multi-Touch

What's Next

Android Studio 2.0 is a big release, and now is good time to check out the beta release to incorporate the new features into your workflow. The beta release is near stable release quality, and should be relatively bug free. But as with any beta release, bugs may still exist, so, if you do find an issue, let us know so we can work to fix it. If you’re already using Android Studio, you can check for updates on the Beta channel from the navigation menu (Help → Check for Update [Windows/Linux] , Android Studio → Check for Updates [OS X]). When you update to beta, you will get access to the new version of Android Studio and Android Emulator.

Connect with us, the Android Studio development team, on Google+.

Android Studio 2.0 Preview: Android Emulator

Posted by, Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

An early preview of the new Android Emulator is now available to try out. As a part of Android Studio 2.0, the latest version of the Android Emulator can help you test your app on a wide range of screens size and configurations beyond the physical Android hardware you use to test.Moreover, using the official Android emulator enables you to test with latest Android versions. Building on this foundation, the top two benefits of new Android emulator are:
  • Speed & Performance: When emulating the latest Android 6.0 release (Marshmallow), we now support Symmetric Multi-Processing and have made significant I/O improvements in both the emulator and ADB. This means you will have faster performance when you are testing your app.
  • Usability & User Interface: The new Android Emulator includes a brand new user interface to make the emulator easy to use. You no longer have to rely on command-line parameters to use the Android emulator. Common tasks and emulator features are now just a mouse click or a keyboard shortcut away.

We previewed the user interface at the Android Dev Summit. You can try it out today along with the new version of ADB for faster APK installation and file transfers to the emulator. Check out the video for a demonstration of the new Android Emulator.



Android Dev Summit 2015: Emulator Demo

We are seeking early feedback to continue to deliver the experience and features that will make you more productive.

New Features in Android Emulator Preview


Performance Improvements

  • CPU Performance


    Android Studio now uses CPU acceleration on x86 emulator system images by default. Combined with new Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP) support in Android 6.0 Marshmallow system images, the Android emulators can perform even faster than many physical Android devices. Multi-core support not only makes your apps and the emulator run faster but it provides the added advantage of speeding up common developer tasks such as installing APKs. Also, with SMP you can test apps that specifically target multi-processor Android devices.

  • Faster ADB


    In addition to faster CPU speeds in the emulator, there are a number of under-the-hood improvements that will make the experience faster. One of the bottlenecks in the development process that we worked on is the speed of pushing data between Android Studio and your device using ADB (Android Debug Bridge). When you use Android 6.0 Marshmallow and higher system images with the new Android Emulator, you can now push files across ADB up to five times faster than a real device. This will help you if you push large APK or files during your app development cycle.

User Interface


  • Toolbar
    The new interface exposes some of the most common emulator actions in a new toolbar and control panel instead of solely relying on command line options. For the preview, the Android Emulator toolbar enables actions, such as volume control, screen rotation, and screen-shots of the emulator window.

  • Window Zooming & Scaling

    Now you can resize your window simply by dragging a corner. You can also zoom and scroll to get a closer look at a portion of your screen.
Left: Zooming
Right: Window Scaling

  • Drag & Drop

    With the new emulator, you can not only drag and drop APKs for quick installation, but you can also drag and drop any file to your emulator’s internal SD card to help in testing.

Drag and Drop Files

  • Extended UI Controls

    In the extended controls window, additional options help you validate and test features in your app. As shown below, you can initiate a range of emulator actions such as making a virtual call, sending a virtual SMS, or controlling the power level of the emulator. You can additionally send a single GPS location point to the emulator or play back a custom set of KML or GPX points as well.

Phone Controls

Battery Controls

We are continuing to add more functionality and we will keep you up to date as we add more features.

What's Next & Setup

This is just the beginning of developments on the Android Emulator, so expect more features such as support more APIs levels, and adding more sensors with future versions of Android Studio. The new emulator along with Android Studio are available today on the Android Studio canary channel and tools preview channel.

Click here for details on how to setup the preview of the new Android Emulator.

We appreciate your feedback. Connect with us, the Android Studio development team, on Google+.