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.
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.
Today, we are thrilled to announce the stable release of Android Studio Giraffe 🦒 : The official IDE for building Android apps!
In this Android Studio release, we have upgraded the IntelliJ platform to 2022.3, including a brand new visual look and feel in Android Studio, improvements to Live Edit, Compose animation previews, a new Device Explorer, a new SDK upgrade assistant, ability to use Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts and much more. Read on to learn more about how Android Studio Giraffe 🦒 can help supercharge your developer productivity.
Thank you to all of you who have given us feedback and used Android Studio since we launched our initial version just over 10 years ago. Download the latest stable version today and we look forward to continuing to deliver on our commitment of delivering a best-in-class integrated development environment (IDE) focused on Android app development!
IDE Enhancements
New UI for Android Studio (Preview)
Along with the much anticipated IntelliJ Platform update, we are excited to share a preview of the visual look that we call the “New UI” for Android Studio Giraffe. The redesigned theme aims to reduce visual complexity, provide easier access to essential features, and disclose complex functionality as needed—resulting in a modern, cleaner look and feel.
The New UI was first released as an early preview in IntelliJ 2022.2 to gather feedback from users and other IntelliJ-based IDEs to ensure it could fully replace the previous UI. Since then, it’s progressed to beta in IntelliJ 2022.3, with many bug fixes and improvements.
With the Giraffe release, we’ve started adopting the new UI, with several Android Studio specific changes, such as optimizing the default main toolbar and tool windows configurations for Android and refreshing our iconography in the style. We are excited by this new design direction and will continue adoption through the Hedgehog release and onward.
To use the New UI, enable it in Settings > Appearance & Behavior > New UI. For a full list of changes, see the IntelliJ New UI documentation.
The New UI adopted from IntelliJ
New diagnostic & bug reporting tool
As you try the New UI, please provide us detailed feedback through our new diagnostic & bug reporting tool that makes it easier to report bugs with relevant log files already attached. The new bug reporting tool is found at Help > Collect Logs and Diagnostic Data.
New diagnostic & bug reporting tool
Updated Device Explorer
Also shipping with the new UI, is an updated Device Explorer (known as the Device File Explorer in previous versions of Android Studio). In the Device Explorer, files and related actions are located in the Files tab. Additionally, in the new Processes tab, you can view a list of debuggable processes for the connected device. From there you can also select a process and perform a kill , force-stop, or attach the debugger to a given process.
Updated Device Explorer
Coding Productivity
Use Live Edit to update composables in real time
Live Edit lets you update composables in Android emulators and physical devices in near real time. You can now edit composables and see the UI changes on the running device without re-deploying your app.
This helps you by minimizing the context switching between writing and building your app, letting you focus on writing code longer without interruption. To try Live Edit, enable it via Settings > Editor > Live Edit and use Android Gradle Plugin (AGP) 8.1 or higher and Jetpack Compose Runtime 1.3.0 or higher.
Use Live Edit to update composables in real time
Compose Animation Preview - Extend animation support
Compose Animation Preview now supports a number of additional Compose APIs, such as animate*AsState, CrossFade, rememberInfiniteTransition, and AnimatedContent (in addition to updateTransition and AnimatedVisibility). Additionally, now there are new pickers that let you set non-enum or boolean states to debug your Compose animation using precise inputs. For all supported Compose Animation APIs, you can play, pause, scrub & control speed.
Compose Animation Preview - Extend animation support
Android SDK Upgrade Assistant
The new Android SDK upgrade assistant lets you see the steps required to upgrade the targetSdkVersion, or the API level that your app targets, directly in the IDE. It also pulls upgrade-related documentation directly from the Android Developer site into its tool window, so you don't have to jump back and forth between your browser and the IDE. For each migration step, it highlights the major breaking changes and how to address them, and even filters the full list of changes to only show steps relevant to your app.
To open the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant, go to Tools > Android SDK Upgrade Assistant.
Android SDK Upgrade Assistant
Improvements to the build system
Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts
Kotlin is not only more readable, it also offers better compile-time checking and IDE support. With Android Studio Giraffe, we are excited to offer the official support for Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts. This means that Kotlin is the default language used in your project code, including UI with Jetpack Compose, and now editing the build scripts too!
Now, when you are creating new projects or modules starting from Android Studio Giraffe, you get the Kotlin DSL by default. And if you want to migrate existing builds, check out the Kotlin DSL migration guide.
We've been working with the Gradle and JetBrains teams on this improvement, and you can read more in their related announcements: Gradle Blog; JetBrains Blog.
Additionally, we’ve also added experimental support for TOML-based Gradle Version Catalogs, a feature that lets you manage dependencies in one central location and share dependencies across modules or projects. Android Studio now makes it easier to configure version catalogs through editor suggestions and integrations with the Project Structure dialog, plus the New Project Wizard.
Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts
Download info during Gradle sync
If you’ve ever wondered if any unexpected dependency downloads are negatively impacting your sync performance, the new Sync tool window now includes a summary of time spent downloading dependencies, and a detailed view of downloads per repository. This view updates live as sync takes place. It can even help you identify inefficiencies in how you configure your repositories.
Download info during Gradle sync
Automatic per-app language support
Typically, multilingual users set their system language to one language—such as English—but they want to select other languages for specific apps, such as Dutch, Chinese, or Hindi. Android 13 introduced support for per-app language preferences, and now Android Gradle plugin 8.1 and higher can configure your app to support it automatically based on your project’s resources. Learn more.
Make selected modules toolbar button
With Android Studio Giraffe, you can now build only the current module you're working on by selecting the Make Selected Modules build option in the toolbar. This new option lets you check that the code you just wrote compiles without building more than needed. Learn more.
Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts
Summary
To recap, Android Studio Giraffe includes these new enhancements and features. You can always learn more with our detailed release notes.
IDE Enhancements
Upgraded to IntelliJ Platform 2022.3: Includes a number of features and bug fixes
New UI for Android Studio : Android Studio now adopts a number of improvements from the IntelliJ's modern design language
Updated Device Explorer : Offers two new tabs : Files & Processes from where you can view a list of debuggable processes, perform a kill, force-stop, or attach the debugger
New diagnostic & bug reporting tool : Easier to report bugs for Android Studio with relevant log files already attached
Coding Productivity
Use Live Edit to update composables in real time : Update composables in real time, edit composables and see the UI changes on the running device without re-deploying your app
Compose Animation Preview - Extend animation support : Now supports a number of additional Compose APIs and new pickers that let you set non-enum or boolean states to debug your Compose animation using precise inputs
Android SDK Upgrade Assistant : Now lets you see the steps required to upgrade the targetSdkVersion, or the API level that your app targets directly in Studio
Improvements to the build system
Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts : With official support for Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts, Kotlin is now the single default language for project code, UI with Jetpack Compose, and now for build scripts
Download info during Gradle sync : Shows a summary of time spent downloading dependencies and a detailed view of downloads per repository
Automatic per-app language support : AGP can now automatically configure per-app language preferences
Make selected modules toolbar button : build only the current module you're working on by selecting the Make Selected Modules build option in the toolbar
Download Android Studio Today!
Now is the time to download Android Studio Giraffe 🦒 to incorporate the new features into your workflow. As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, please file an issue and also check out known issues. Remember to also follow us on Twitter, Medium, or YouTube for more Android development updates!
Posted by Adarsh Fernando, Senior Product Manager, Android Studio
We first announced Android Studio at I/O 2013 with a promise to deliver a best-in-class integrated development environment (IDE) focused on Android app developers. 10 years later, this commitment to developer productivity still drives the team to deliver new tools and solutions that help teams around the world to create amazing app experiences for their users. And with Google's push to unlock the power of AI to help you throughout your day, Android Studio Hedgehog introduces a key breakthrough: an AI-powered conversational experience designed to make you more productive.
In addition to accelerating coding productivity, this latest version of the IDE provides better tools when you develop for multiple form factors, and helps you improve app quality with new insights, debugging, and testing solutions. All these improvements add to the many updates we’ve included in Android Studio Giraffe, which is now in the Beta channel and helps make it easier to configure your builds with Kotlin DSL support, improve sync times with new data and guidance, target the latest Android SDK version with the new Android SDK Upgrade Assistant, and more.
To see highlights of the new features in action including Studio Bot, watch the What’s new in Android Developer Tools session from Google I/O 2023.
What’s new in Android Development Tools - with Studio Bot Demo
At the heart of our mission is to accelerate your ability to write high-quality code for Android. In this release we are excited to introduce an AI-powered conversational experience called Studio Bot, that leverages Codey, Google's foundation model for coding that is a descendant of PaLM 2, to help you generate code for your app and make you more productive. You can also ask questions to learn more about Android development or help fix errors in your existing code — all without ever having to leave Android Studio. Studio Bot is in its very early days, and we’re training it to become even better at answering your questions and helping you learn best practices. We encourage you to try it out for yourselves, and help it improve by sharing your feedback directly with Studio Bot.
Privacy is top of mind, and what is unique in this integration is that you don’t need to send your source code to Google to use Studio Bot—only the chat dialogue between you and Studio Bot is shared. Much like our work on other AI projects, we stick to a set of principles that hold us accountable. We’re taking a measured approach to our rollout; for this initial launch, Studio Bot is only available to Android developers in the US. You can read more here
Studio Bot
Live Edit
Live Edit helps keep you in the flow by minimizing interruptions when you make updates to your Compose UI and validates those changes on a running device. You can use it in manual mode to control when the running app should be updated or in automatic mode to update the running app as you make code changes. Live Edit is available in Android Studio Giraffe Beta, with the Hedgehog release providing additional improvements in error handling and reporting.
Live Edit with Compose
Build productivity
Kotlin DSL and Version Catalogs
A number of updates help you leverage more modern syntax and conventions when configuring your build. Kotlin is the recommended language when developing for Android. Now, with official support for Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts, it’s also the preferred way to configure your build because Kotlin is more readable and offers better compile-time checking and IDE support. Additionally, we’ve also added experimental support for TOML-based Gradle Version Catalogs, a feature that lets you manage dependencies in one central location and share dependencies across modules or projects. Android Studio now makes it easier to configure version catalogs through editor suggestions and integrations with the Project Structure dialog, plus the New Project Wizard.
Kotlin DSL and Version Catalogs in the New Project Wizard
Per-app language preferences
Typically, multilingual users set their system language to one language—such as English—but they want to select other languages for specific apps, such as Dutch, Chinese, or Hindi. Android 13 introduced support for per-app language preferences, and now Android Gradle plugin 8.1 and higher can configure your app to support it automatically. Learn more.
Download impact during Sync
When using Android Gradle Plugin 7.3 or higher, The Build > Sync tool window now includes a summary of time spent downloading dependencies and a detailed view of downloads per repository, so you can easily determine whether unexpected downloads are impacting build performance. Additionally, it can help you identify inefficiencies in how you configure your repositories. Learn more.
Build Analyzer showing impact of downloads during build
New Android SDK Upgrade Assistant
Android Studio Giraffe introduces the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant, a new tool that helps you upgrade the targetSdkVersion, which is the API level that your app targets. Instead of having to navigate every API change with an Android SDK release, the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant guides you through upgrading targetSdkVersion level by level by creating a customized filter of API changes that are relevant to your app. For each migration step, it highlights the major breaking changes and how to address them, helping you get to taking advantage of what the latest versions of Android have to offer much more quickly. To open the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant, go to Tools > Android SDK Upgrade Assistant. In the Assistant panel, select the API level that you want to upgrade to for guidance.
Upgrade more quickly with the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant
Developing for form factors
Google Pixel Fold and Tablet Virtual Devices
Although these devices won’t launch until later this year, you can start preparing your app to take full advantage of the expanded screen sizes and functionality of these devices by creating virtual devices using new Google Pixel Fold and Google Pixel Tablet device profiles in Android Studio Hedgehog. To start, open Device Manager and select Create Device.
Pixel Tablet running on the Android Emulator
Emulator Support for Wear OS 4 Developer Preview
Wear OS 4 is the next generation OS for Wear. Based on Android 13, it officially launches in the fall and has a great selection of new features and optimizations. We’re giving you a preview of all the new platform features with the new Wear OS 4 emulator. We recommend you try it with Android Studio Hedgehog and test that your Wear OS app works as intended with the latest platform updates. The Wear OS 4 emulator will give you a faster and smoother transition to Wear OS 4, and help you make apps ready in time for the official Wear OS 4 release on real devices. Check out the Wear 4 Preview site for how to get started with the new Wear OS 4 emulator.
Watch Face Format support in Wear OS 4 Emulator
Together with Samsung, we’re excited to announce the launch of the Watch Face Format, a new way to build watch faces for Wear OS. The Watch Face Format is a declarative XML format, meaning there will be no code in your watch face APK. The platform takes care of the logic needed to render the watch face so you no longer have to worry about code optimizations or battery performance. Use watch face creation tools such as Watch Face Studio to design watch faces, or you can manually or dynamically edit the watch face format to build watch faces directly. You can test the new Watch Face Format on the Wear OS 4 emulator.
Watch Face Format Watchface on Wear 4 Emulator
Device Mirroring for local devices
Whether you use a direct USB connection or ADB over Wi-Fi, Device Mirroring lets you see and interact with your local physical devices directly within the Android Studio Running Devices window. This feature lets you focus on how you develop and test your app all in one place. With the Hedgehog release, we’re adding more functionality, including the ability to mirror Wear OS devices and simulate folding actions on foldable devices directly from the IDE.
Device Mirroring with the Pixel Fold
Android Device Streaming
We know sometimes it’s critical for you to see and test how your apps work on physical hardware to ensure that your users have the best experience. However, accessing the latest flagship devices isn’t always easy. Building on top of Device Mirroring for local devices, we’re introducing device streaming of remote physical Google Pixel devices, such as the Pixel Fold and Pixel Tablet, directly within Android Studio. Device streaming will let you deploy your app to these remote devices and interact with them, all without having to leave the IDE. If you’re interested in getting early access later this year, enroll now.
Espresso Device API
Automated testing of your app using Espresso APIs helps you catch potential issues early, before they reach users. However, testing your app across configuration changes, such as rotating or folding a device, has always been a challenge. Espresso Device API is now available to help you write tests that perform synchronous configuration changes when testing on Android virtual devices running API level 24 and higher. You can also set up test filters to ensure that tests that require certain device features, such as a folding action, only run on devices that support them. Learn more.
Synchronous device configuration changes using the Espresso Device API
Improve your app quality
App Quality Insights with Android vitals
App Quality Insights launched in Android Studio Electric Eel to provide access to Firebase Crashlytics issue reports directly from the IDE. The integration lets you navigate between your stack trace and code with a click, use filters to see only the most important issues, and see report details to help you reproduce issues. In Android Studio Hedgehog, you can now view important crash reports from Android vitals, powered by Google Play. Android vitals reports also include useful insights, such as notes from SDK providers so that you can quickly diagnose and resolve crashes related to SDKs your app might be using.
Android vitals crash reports in the App Quality Insights window
App Quality Insights with improved code navigation
When you publish your app using the latest version of AGP 8.2, crash reports now attach minimal git commit hash data to help Android Studio navigate to your code when investigating Crashlytics crash reports in the IDE. Now, when you view a report that includes the necessary metadata, you can choose to either navigate to the line of code in your current git checkout, or view a diff between the checkout and the version of your codebase that generated the crash. To get started with the right dependencies, see the documentation.
Compose State information in Debugger
When parts of your Compose UI recompose unexpectedly, it can sometimes be difficult to understand why. Now, when setting a breakpoint on a Composable function, the debugger lists the parameters of the composable and their state, so you can more easily identify what changes might have caused the recomposition. For example, when you pause on a composable, the debugger can tell you exactly which parameters have “Changed” or have remained “Unchanged”, so you can more efficiently investigate the cause of the recomposition.
Compose state information in the debugger
New Power Profiler
We are excited to announce a brand new Power Profiler in Android Studio Hedgehog, which shows power consumption on the Pixel 6 and higher devices running Android 10 and higher. Data is segmented by each sub-system (such as, Camera, GPS, and more). This data is made available when recording a System Trace via the Profiler and helps you to visually correlate power consumption of the device to the actions happening in your app. For example, you can A/B test multiple algorithms of your video calling app to optimize power consumed by the camera sensor.
The new Power Profiler
Device Explorer
The Device File Explorer in Giraffe has been renamed to Device Explorer and updated to include information about debuggable processes running on connected devices. In addition to the Files tab, which includes existing functionality that allows you to explore a device’s file hierarchy, the new Processes tab allows you to view a list of debuggable processes for the connected device. From there you can also select a process and perform a Kill process action (which runs am kill), a Force stop (which runs am force-stop) , or attach the debugger to a selected process.
Processes tab in the Device Explorer window
Compose animation preview
Compose Animation Preview in Android Studio Hedgehog now supports a number of additional Compose APIs, animate*AsState, CrossFade, rememberInfiniteTransition, and AnimatedContent (in addition to updateTransition and AnimatedVisibility). Compose Animation Preview also has new pickers that let you set non-enum or boolean states to debug your Compose animation using precise inputs. For all supported Compose Animation APIs, you can play, pause, scrub, control speed, and coordinate.
Compose Animation Preview
Embedded Layout Inspector
You can now run Layout Inspector directly embedded in the Running Device Window in Android Studio! Try out this feature today in Android Studio Hedgehog to conserve screen real estate and organize your UI debugging workflow in a single tool window. You can access common Layout Inspector features such as debugging the layout of your app by showing a view hierarchy and allowing you to inspect the properties of each view. Additionally, because the embedded Layout Inspector overlays on top of the existing device mirroring stream, overall performance when using the inspector is now much faster. To get started and understand known limitations, read the release notes.
Embedded Layout Inspector
Firebase Test Lab support for Gradle Managed Devices
Gradle Managed Devices launched in Android Gradle Plugin (AGP) 7.3 to make it easier to utilize virtual devices when running automated tests in your continuous integration (CI) infrastructure by allowing Gradle to manage all aspects of device provisioning. All you need to do is use the AGP DSL to describe the devices you wanted Gradle to use. But sometimes you need to run your tests on physical Android devices. With AGP 8.2, we have expanded Gradle Managed Devices with the ability to target real physical (and virtual) devices running in Firebase Test Lab (FTL). The capability makes it easier than ever to scalably test across the large selection of FTL devices with only a few simple steps. Additionally, this version of AGP can also take advantage of FTL’s new Smart Sharding capabilities, which allows you to get test results back much more quickly by utilizing multiple devices that run in parallel. To learn more and get started, read the release notes.
Gradle Managed Devices with support for Firebase Test Lab
IntelliJ
IntelliJ Platform Update
Android Studio Hedgehog (2023.1) includes the IntelliJ 2023.1 platform release, which comes with IDE startup performance improvements, faster import of Maven projects, and a more streamlined commit process. Read the IntelliJ release notes here.
New UI
Along with the IntelliJ platform update comes further improvements to the New UI. In large part due to community feedback, there’s a new Compact Mode, which provides a more consolidated look and feel of the IDE, and an option to vertically split the tool window area and conveniently arrange the windows, just like in the old UI. We also improved the Android-specific UI by updating the main toolbar, tool windows, and new iconography. To use the New UI, enable it in Settings > Appearance & Behavior > New UI. For a full list of changes, see the IntelliJ New UI documentation.
The New UI adopted from IntelliJ
Summary
To recap, Android Studio Giraffe is available in the Beta channel. Android Studio Hedgehog is the latest version of the IDE and is available in the Canary channel, and includes all of these new enhancements and features:
Coding productivity
Android Studio Bot, is a tightly integrated, AI-powered assistant in Android Studio designed to make you more productive.
(Beta) Live Edit, which helps keep you in the flow by minimizing interruptions when you make updates to your Compose UI and validate those changes on a running device.
Build productivity
(Beta) Kotlin DSL and Version Catalogs, which helps you take advantage of more modern syntax and conventions when configuring your build.
(Beta) Per-app language preferences, built-in support in AGP for automatically configuring per-app language preferences.
(Beta) Download impact in Build Analyzer, which provides a summary of time spent downloading dependencies and a detailed view of downloads per repository, so you can easily determine whether unexpected downloads are impacting build performance.
(Beta) New Android SDK Upgrade Assistant, which helps you upgrade the targetSdkVersion, which is the API level that your app targets, much more quickly.
Developing for form factors
Google Pixel Fold and Google Pixel Tablet Virtual Devices, which can help you start preparing your app to take full advantage of the expanded screen sizes and functionality of these devices before they are available in stores.
Wear OS 4 Developer Preview Emulator, which similarly provides you early access to test and optimize your app against the next generation of Wear OS by Google.
Watch Face Format support in Wear OS 4 Developer Preview Emulator, a new way to build watch faces for Wear OS.
Device Mirroring for local devices, which lets you see and interact with your local physical devices directly within Android Studio’s Running Devices window.
Android Device Streaming, a device streaming of remote physical Google Pixel devices, which you can register for early access today!
Espresso Device API, which helps you write tests that perform synchronous configuration changes when testing on Android virtual devices running API level 24 and higher.
Improve your app quality
App Quality Insights: Android vitals, which now lets your view, filter, and navigate important crash reports from Android vitals, powered by Google Play.
App Quality Insights with improved code navigation, which lets you now choose to either navigate to the line of code in your current git checkout, or view a diff between the checkout and the version of your codebase that generated the crash.
Compose State information in Debugger, which lists the parameters of the composable and their state when paused on a breakpoint in a composable, so you can more easily identify what changes might have caused the recomposition.
New Power Profiler, which shows highly accurate power consumption from the device segmented by each sub-system.
(Beta) Device Explorer, which now includes information about debuggable processes running on connected devices and actions you can perform on them.
(Beta) Compose animation preview, now supports a number of additional Compose APIs and new pickers that let you set non-enum or boolean states to debug your Compose animation using precise inputs.
Embedded Layout Inspector, which runs Layout Inspector directly embedded in the Running Device Window in Android Studio, leading to a more seamless debugging experience and significant performance improvements.
Firebase Test Lab support for Gradle Managed Devices, which leverages GMD to help you seamlessly configure Firebase Test Lab devices for your automated testing, and now with additional support for smart sharding.
IntelliJ
IntelliJ Platform Update to the IntelliJ 2023.1 platform release, which includes a number of performance and quality of life improvements.
New UI update that allows Android Studio to adopt a number of improvements to IntilliJ’s modern design language.
You can download Android Studio Hedgehog Canary or Android Studio Giraffe Beta today to incorporate the new features into your workflow. You can install them side by side with a stable version of Android Studio by following these instructions. The Beta release is near stable release quality, but bugs might still exist, and Canary features are leading edge features. As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like or features you would like to see. If you find a bug, please report the issue and also check out known issues. Remember to also follow us on Twitter, Medium, or YouTube for more Android development updates!
The Android Studio logo redesign caught the attention of the developer community since its sneak peek at the Android Developer Summit ‘22. We are thrilled to release the new Android Studio logo with the stable release of Flamingo. Now that the new logo is available to most Android Studio users, we can examine the design changes in greater detail and decode their meaning.
This case study offers a comprehensive overview of the design journey, from identifying the initial problem to the final outcome. It explores the critical brand elements that the team needed to consider and the tools used throughout the redesign process. This case study also delves into the various stages of design exploration, highlighting the efforts to create a modern logo while honoring the Android Studio brand's legacy.
You told us the Android Studio logo looked a little weird and complicated. It doesn't shrink down well and it's way too similar to the emulator. We heard you!
With Android Studio’s new Logo, it seems like the studio team gave high consideration to Android Launcher Icon guidelines with no regards for how it looks on a Windows Machine Taskbar” tweet by @theretroportal Oct 22, 2020
The Android Studio logo used between 2020 and 2022 was well-suited for print, but it posed challenges when used as an application icon. Its readability suffered when reduced to smaller sizes, and its similarity to the emulator caused confusion.
2020 - 2022 Android Studio Stable scalability issues
Additionally, the use of color alone to differentiate between Canary and Stable versions made it difficult for users with color vision deficiencies.
The redesign aimed to resolve these concerns by creating a logo that was easy to read, visually distinctive, and followed the OS guidelines when necessary, ensuring accessibility. The new design also maintained a connection with the Android logo family while honoring its legacy.
Android Developer Logo Family
In this case study, we will delve into the version history and evolution of the Android Studio logo and how it has changed over the years.
A brief history of the Android Studio logo
2013: The original Android Studio logo was a 3D robot that highlighted the gears and interworking of the bugdroid. At this time, the Android Emulator was the bugdroid.
2014: The Android Emulator merged to a flat mark but remained otherwise unchanged.
2014-2019: An updated Android Studio logo was introduced featuring an "A" compass in front of a green circle.
2019: In Canary 3.6, the color palette was updated to match Android 10.
2020-2022: With the release of Android Studio 4.1 Canary, the "A" compass was reduced to an abstract form placed in front of a blueprint. The Android head was also added, peeking over the top.
A timeline of Android Studio & Emulator design evolution
Understanding the Android brand elements
When redesigning a logo, it's important to consider brand elements that unify products within an ecosystem. For the Android Developer ecosystem, the “robot head” is a key brand element, alongside the primaryAndroid green color. The secondary colors blue and navy, and tertiary colors like orange, can also be utilized for support.
Android brand color palette
Key objectives
Iconography: use recognizable and appropriate symbols, such as compass "A" for Android Studio or a device for Android Emulator, to convey the purpose and functionality clearly and quickly.
Enhance recognition and scalability: the Android Studio and Android Emulator should prioritize legibility and scalability, ensuring that they can be easily recognized and understood even at smaller sizes.
Establish distinction: the Android Studio and Android Emulator need to be easily distinguishable, to avoid confusion.
Maintain brand consistency: the Android Studio and Android Emulator designs should be consistent with the overall branding and visual identity of the Android family, while still being distinctive.
Ensure accessibility: the logo should be accessible to all users, including those with visual impairments. This means using clear shapes, colors, and contrast.
Follow OS guidelines: the updated application icon must align with the Android visual language and conform to the guidelines of macOS, Windows, and Linux operating systems, ensuring consistency and coherence across all platforms.
Ensure versatility: the Android Studio logo should be versatile enough to work in a variety of sizes and contexts, such as on different devices and platforms.
The tools
Paper, pencil and pen sketching, markers, Adobe Illustrator and Figma.
Design exploration: how it started
It all started as a simple brief: redesign the Android Studio logo. We initiated our creative process by brainstorming objects and concepts that evoke a sense of software development - such as pencils, rulers, building blocks, construction sites, tape measures, compasses, and protractors.
Logo exploration and sketches: pencils, rulers and compass
Logo exploration and sketches: blueprint, rulers and Android head
We experimented with replacing the drawing compass with a ruler and tried various combinations of design elements. We even explored the idea of incorporating bricks, similar to building blocks, and playfully stacked the Android head, a ruler, and a pencil together, with a nod to the terminal prompt symbol '>'.
Logo exploration with building blocks and a ‘play on terminal’
During the logo exploration phase, we examined different approaches to incorporating an "A" for Android into the design. One concept highlighted the precision of Android development tools through an "A" ruler, while another featured the original "A" compass from 2014.
Once we had generated a variety of logo concepts through sketching, we then proceeded to add the Android color palette to our designs. This was an important step to ensure that our new logo would not only stand out on its own but also maintain a strong visual connection with the wider Android Developer family branding.
Android Studio logo exploration with an “A” ruler
Android Studio logo exploration with a “A” compass
To ensure clear differentiation between the redesigned Emulator and Android Studio, we explored the option of removing elements and reversing the colors of both marks, which would simplify their overall design and make them easier to recognize at a glance.
Android Studio & Android Emulator exploration
We aimed to enhance the distinctiveness, scalability, and iconography by carefully analyzing various design elements such as line weight, corner radius, and the placement of the Android head, to create a visually strong mark. We further simplified the design by eliminating all shadow effects and reorienting the emulator phone to an upright position, which improved recognition, scalability, and scannability. This heightened the visual differentiation between the two marks, making them more recognizable and visually distinct.
Android Emulator exploration
Design exploration: how it ended
The redesigned Android Studio logo is a fresh take on the original design, featuring the Android head and the iconic A compass. The team initially considered keeping the simplified A used in the 2020- 2022, but ultimately decided that the simplified A was not strong enough of a mark to be the central symbol of the Android Studio brand. The compass's handle and hinge have been reintroduced, while the legs of the compass have been sharpened to points, reflecting the meticulousness and precision that developers bring to their craft. Additionally, the adjustment angle radius has been reinstated, creating the crossbar necessary to form the letter A.
Inclusive design: improved accessibility and scalability
Accessible: the logo uses secondary encoding with an outlined A for Canary and a solid A for Stable in addition to color. This makes it easier for users with color vision deficiencies to distinguish between the two application icons.
Minimal and scalable: the blueprint drawing in the 2020 - 2022 was removed to create a minimalist design that is scalable and legible at smaller sizes. This makes it easier for low vision users to see.
Ensuring recognition: the new logo's central focus is the A compass, which incorporates elements from the original compass mark. This helps ensure that the application icon is recognizable to users, even at small sizes.
The unique shapes: squircle and 13-pointed bottle cap
The Android Studio application icon consists of two unique shapes: a squircle, a square with slightly rounded corners commonly used in macOS applications, and a 13-pointed bottle cap, which is a shape derived from the Modern Android design system. Besides reflecting the design system, the 13-pointed bottle cap also serves as a delightful Easter egg 🥚, with 13 points specifically included to coincide with Android 13's release. These two background shapes are used on desktop to adhere to OS guidelines, and to ensure that the application icon is legible and recognizable in both dark and light mode.
Android Studio has two application icons - one for the Canary version and one for the Stable release. The Canary application icon is a white outline on a dark blue background, representing a blueprint or prototype. The Android Studio Preview (Canary) version enables developers to experiment with new features that are still in development. The white outline of the A compass in Canary indicates that the features are not yet finalized and may change.
From 2014 to 2022, the Android Studio application icons featured different background colors, with yellow representing Canary and green (2014 - 2019) and white (2020-2022) representing Stable releases. However, the most recent redesign takes accessibility to a new level by going beyond the use of background colors alone to differentiate between Canary and Stable. The new design employs a secondary encoding method, featuring an outlined A for Canary and a solid A for Stable, in addition to color, to effectively convey meaning and make the application icons more accessible for users with color vision deficiencies.
The new Android Studio application icons also embody the spirit of software development, highlighting the transformation from a blueprint/prototype (Canary) to a fully designed and polished product (Stable). Drawing inspiration from the design language of the Canary and Stable Splash Screens, the Android Studio Canary and Stable icons visually reinforce the progression of the developer's journey from the blueprint and ideation stages to execution.
A modern Android Studio & Emulator logo that honors its legacy
The new Android Studio logo illustrates how a brand can evolve through simplification, improve clarity and recognition while honoring its legacy. By keeping the A compass as a reference to the 2014 logo, the team created a modern design that represents the evolution of the Android Studio platform. This minimalist design is easily recognizable and aligns with the rest of the Android Developer branding.
It is a good time to download the latest stable version of Android Studio to see the new icon. As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, please file an issue and also check out known-issues. Remember to also follow us on Twitter, Medium, or YouTube for more Android Development updates!
Posted by Steven Jenkins, Product Manager, Android Studio
Today, we are thrilled to announce the stable release of Android Studio Flamingo🦩: The official IDE for building Android apps!
This release includes improvements to help you build pixel-perfect UI with Live Edit, new features that assist with inspecting your app, IntelliJ updates, and more. Read on or watch the video to learn more about how Android Studio Flamingo🦩 can help supercharge your productivity and download the latest stable version today!
UI Tools
Jetpack Compose and Material 3 templates – Jetpack Compose is now recommended for new projects so the templates use Jetpack Compose and Material 3 by default.
Live Edit (Compose) experimental – Iteratively build an app using Compose by pushing code changes directly to an attached device or emulator. Push changes on file save or automatically and watch your UI update in real time. Live Edit is experimental and can be enabled in the Editor Settings. There are known limitations. Please send us your feedback so that we can continue to improve it. Learn more.
Live edit
Themed app icon Preview support – You can now use the System UI Mode selector on the toolbar to switch wallpapers and see how your themed app icons react to the chosen wallpaper. (Note: required in apps targeting API level 33 and higher.)
Previewing Themed app icons across different wallpapers
Dynamic color Preview
Enable dynamic color in your app and use the new wallpaper attribute in an @Preview composable to switch wallpapers and see how your UI reacts to different wallpapers. (Note: you must use Compose 1.4.0 or higher.)
Compose Preview: dynamic color wallpaper
Build
Build Analyzer task categorization – Build Analyzer now groups tasks by categories such as Manifest, Android Resources, Kotlin, Dexing and more. Categories are sorted by duration and can be expanded to display a list of the corresponding tasks for further analysis. This makes it easy to know which categories have the most impact on build time.
Build Analyzer Task Categorization
One-click automated profileable build and run – When you are profiling your app, you want to avoid profiling a debuggable build. These are great during development, but the results can be skewed. Instead, you should profile a non-debuggable build because that is what your users will be running. This is now more convenient with one-click automated profileable build and run. Easily configure a profileable app and profile it with one click. You can still choose to profile your debuggable build by selecting Profile app with complete data. Read more on the blog.
One-click Automated Profileable Build and Run
Lint support for SDK extensions – SDK extensions leverage modular system components to add APIs to the public SDK for previously released API levels. Now, you can scan for and fix SDK extension issues with lint support. Android Studio automatically generates the correct version checks for APIs that are launched using SDK extensions.
Lint Support for SDK Extensions
Android Gradle Plugin 8.0.0 – Android Studio Flamingo ships with a new, major version of the Android Gradle plugin. The plugin brings many improvements, but also introduces a number of behavior changes and the Transform API removal. Please make sure to read about the required changes before you upgrade the AGP version in your projects.
Inspect
Updates to App Quality Insights – Discover, investigate, and reproduce issues reported by Crashlytics with App Quality Insights. You can filter by app version, Crashlytics signals, device type, or operating system version. In the latest update you can now close issues or add useful annotations in the Notes pane.
Annotate and close issues inside the notes pane
Network Inspector traffic interception – Network Inspector now shows all traffic data for the full timeline by default. Create and manage rules that help test how your app behaves when encountering different responses such as status codes, and response headers and bodies. The rules determine what responses to intercept and how to modify these responses before they reach the app. You can choose which rule to enable or disable by checking the Active box next to each rule. Rules are automatically saved every time you modify them.
Network Inspector Traffic Interception
Auto-connect to foreground process in Layout Inspector – Layout Inspector now automatically connects to the foreground process. You no longer have to click to attach it to your app.
IntelliJ
IntelliJ Platform Update – Android Studio Flamingo (2022.2.1) includes the IntelliJ 2022.2 platform release, which comes with IDE performance improvements, enhanced rendering performance on macOS thanks to the Metal API and more. It also improves the IDE performance when using Kotlin, which positively impacts code highlighting, completion, and find usages. Read the IntelliJ release notes here.
Summary
To recap, Android Studio Flamingo (2022.2.1) includes these new enhancements and features:
UI Tools
Live Edit (Compose) - Experimental
Themed app icon Preview support
Dynamic color Preview
Jetpack Compose and Material 3 Templates
Build
Build Analyzer Task Categorization
One-click Automated Profileable Build and Run
Lint Support for SDK Extensions
Breaking changes in Android Gradle Plugin 8.0
Inspect
Updates to App Quality Insights
Network Inspector Traffic Interception
Auto-connect to foreground process in Layout Inspector
Now is the time to download Android Studio Flamingo (2022.2.1) to incorporate the new features into your workflow. As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, please file an issue and also check out known issues. Remember to also follow us on Twitter, Medium, or YouTube for more Android development updates!
Posted by Paris Hsu, Product & Design, Android; Takeshi Hagikura, Developer Relations Engineer, Android
Today, we are thrilled to announce the stable release of Android Studio Chipmunk ?: The official IDE for building Android applications! This release is a smaller feature release, but we included the latest IntelliJ update and devoted more time to quality and stability. In this release alone, we address over 175+ quality issues.
If you want to be on the latest stable version of Android Studio you can download it today!
What’s in Android Studio Chipmunk
Below is a full list of new features in Android Studio Chipmunk:
Compose Animation Preview
This previously experimental feature is now available to allow Jetpack Compose developers to inspect and debug their animations built with Compose. If an animation is described in a composable preview, you can inspect the exact value of each animated value at a given time, pause the animation, loop it, fast-forward it, or slow it down. It is especially useful to compare animations with their design specs frame by frame.
Compose Animation Preview currently supports AnimatedVisibility and updateTransition. It will support more animation types in the future.
Compose Animation Shrine Cart
CPU Profiler
Android Studio Chipmunk now shows updated jank information, including jank types, and expected and actual deadlines that help you spot the actual cause of the jank. This jank information is available when you use the Android Emulator or physical devices with API level 31 (Android 12) or higher. Learn more here.
Showing Jank Information in CPU Profiler
Build Analyzer: Check Jetifier
In Chipmunk we have introduced a new Jetifier check in Build Analyzer that will notify you if you can remove the Jetifier flag to improve performance during build.
The Jetifier flag was designed to automatically migrate third-party libraries to use AndroidX, and the vast majority of Android Studio projects still have it enabled. However, the library ecosystem has mostly moved to support AndroidX natively, and having the flag now usually adds unnecessary build overhead -- turning it off will typically save 5-10% on build times.
Showing Jetifier Check in Build Analyzer
IntelliJ Platform Update
Although the number of Android specific features is light for Android Studio Chipmunk, it however includes the IntelliJ 2021.2 platform major release ?, which has many new features such as project-wide analysis, a new powerful Package Search UI, and IDE actions enhancements to speed up your workflow. Learn more.
Getting Started
In short, Android Studio Chipmunk ? is the update you don’t want to miss! Even though it was a shorter release, with the new version for IntelliJ, our continual efforts to improve quality, performance, and stability of the IDE, and the features listed earlier, we can’t wait for you to download and try it today!
As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, please file an issue. To stay up-to-date with the latest features, follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.
The Android Studio team has been abuzz with the stable release of Android Studio Bumblebee (2021.1.1) ? and Android Gradle plugin (AGP) 7.1.0; the latest versions of Android official IDE and build system. We’ve improved functionality across a broad area of the typical developer workflow: Build and Deploy, Profiling and Inspection, and Design.
Some notable additions include a unified test execution between Android Studio and your continuous integration (CI) server ✅, convenient pairing flows to support ADB over Wi-Fi ?, Improved Profiler tools to help you identify and analyze jank in your app ?️, and new ways to preview animations ? and UI interactions without deploying your app to a device.
As always, this release wouldn’t be possible without the early feedback from our Preview users. So read on or watch below for further highlights and new features you can find in this stable version. If you’re ready to jump in and see for yourself, head over to the official website to download Android Studio Bumblebee (2021.1.1).
What’s in Android Studio Bumblebee (2021.1.1)
Below is a full list of new features in Android Studio Bumblebee (2021.1.1), organized by the three major themes.
Build and Deploy
New Device Manager: This new tool window in Bumblebee makes it easier to see and manage your virtual and physical test devices, and you can open it by selecting View > Tool Windows > Device Manager from the main menu bar. In the Virtual tab, create a new device, review device details, delete a device, or anything else you used to do from the now removed AVD Manager. In the Physical tab, quickly pair to a new device using ADB Wi-Fi and see details of each physical device at a glance, or quickly inspect each device’s file system using the Device File Explorer with a click of a button. Learn more about the New Device Manager in the release notes.
Device Manager
ADB over Wi-Fi: Bumblebee includes a simplified flow to connect to your Android 11 and higher devices over Wi-Fi for deployment and debugging using ADB. After you enable debugging over Wi-Fi on your device, select the Pair using Wi-Fi action in the Physical tab of the new Device Manager to open the pairing wizard. Then follow the steps provided to pair to a device connected over the same network. Learn more.
Pairing a device with ADB over Wifi
Run Instrumented Tests in Android Studio using Gradle: Have you ever run tests in Android Studio with different results than the same tests running on your CI? This can be a frustrating issue that leads to lost productivity. To resolve this issue, we’ve introduced a new test runner to Android Gradle plugin (AGP) 7.1.0 that Android Studio Bumblebee uses by default when running instrumentation tests, so all your tests run through a unified test runner. This is a similar improvement to Android Studio Arctic Fox, where we started running all unit tests via Gradle by default. And, similarly, this improvement doesn’t require you to change how you write or run your tests!
Using different runners lead to inconsistent results
Android Studio now runs instrumentation tests via Gradle
Android Gradle Plugin Upgrade Assistant now updates API usage: Originally introduced in Android Studio 4.2, the AGP Upgrade Assistant helped users update their projects to the latest version, and improvements in Arctic Fox provided a new UI with the ability to review and select the upgrade version and steps. In Bumblebee, the Upgrade Assistant now also checks for and offers to update your DSL to help you avoid using deprecated APIs before they are deleted. For more information see the Android Gradle Plugin DSL/API migration timeline.
Non-Transitive R classes on for new projects: Android Studio Arctic Fox introduced new refactoring tools to help you use non-transitive R classes to enable faster builds for applications with multiple modules. When creating new projects using Bumblebee, the IDE configures your project to use non-transitive R classes, by default. While this does bring performance improvements, you now have to refer to R classes by their proper package name, and not by the package names of their parent modules, as they will no longer resolve transitively. For more information see Use non-transitive R classes.
Emulator tool window enabled by default: Introduced in Android Studio 4.1, the Emulator launches within an Android Studio tool window and allows you to deploy and interact with virtual Android devices while fully remaining within the context of the IDE. The changes ads an improved UX for extended controls and snapshot management. For more information see Run the Android Emulator directly in Android Studio.
Apple Silicon Support Update - For those using macOS on Apple Silicon (arm64) hardware, Android Studio Arctic Fox and the Android Emulator have supported this new architecture since last year. However, with this release, we have now updated the Android SDK platform tools v32.0.0 (which includes ADB and fastboot) and build tools v32.1.0 (which includes aapt) to be universal binaries so that your Android developer tools no longer need the Rosetta binary translator to run. Based on community feedback, those developers on this hardware platform have seen notable performance improvements. See release notes.
Profile and Inspect
Jank detection track in Profilers: When profiling your app using devices running Android 11 (API level 30) or higher, the CPU profiler now shows a new group of tracks that illustrate the stages of each frame under Frame Lifecycle: Application, Wait for GPU, Composition and Frames on display. Each track labels the frames with a frame number and color-codes the rectangle to make it easy for you to visualize where a particular frame is in its lifecycle, along with guides you can toggle to compare with Vsync events. You can use this data to understand where Jank might occur in your app and investigate the root causes. In the Analysis panel, there is now a Frames tab, which conveniently summarizes rendering information for all frames. For more information, see UI jank detection.
Detailed frame lifecycle information in the CPU Profiler
Profileable app profiling support in Studio Profilers: When profiling your app, it’s important to generate accurate data with the version of your app that most closely resembles what your users will install. To do so, you can now include the <profileable> property in your app’s manifest to profile apps that are not debuggable, as shown below.
<profileable android:shell="true"/>
Profileable is a manifest configuration introduced in Android 10, and is available for CPU and Memory profiling tasks. Using the profileable flag instead of the debuggable flag has the key advantage of lower overhead for performance measurement; however, certain profiling features are not available for Profileable builds, such as the Event timeline, API initiated CPU profiling, heap dumps, or live location recordings. For more information, see Profileable applications.
Inspect Jobs, Alarms, and Wakelocks: The Background Task Inspector has been expanded to allow you to inspect Jobs, Alarms, and Wakelocks. You can see live information on how these background tasks are being scheduled, and see detailed information about their execution, similar to how you can inspect Workers. Additionally, when inspecting Workers, you can track and inspect Jobs that your Workers schedule for you. If you used to use the Energy Profiler in previous versions of the IDE, you should now navigate to View > Tool Windows > App Inspection from the menu bar and select the Background Task Inspector to inspect Jobs, Alarms, and Wakelocks.
Inspect Jobs, Alarms, and Wakelocks in the Background Task Inspector
Network Inspection: The Network Profiler has now migrated to the App Inspection tool window, to allow for a lighter-weight experience for inspecting network traffic in your app. The look and feel of the Network Profiler has been maintained and works with any debuggable app on devices running API level 26 and higher. To use the new inspector, select View > Tool Windows > App Inspection from the menu bar and select the Network Inspector. For more information, see Inspect network traffic with the Network Inspector.
Capture Layout Inspector snapshots: You can now capture snapshots of your app’s layout hierarchy to save, share, or inspect later. Snapshots capture the data you would typically see when using the Layout Inspector, including a detailed 3D rendering of your layout, the component tree of your View, Compose, or hybrid layout, and detailed attributes for each component of your UI. When inspecting the layout of a live running app, click Export snapshot from the Layout Inspector toolbar and save the snapshot with an *.li extension. You can then load a Layout Inspector snapshot by selecting File > Open from the main menu bar, and opening a *.li file. The snapshot appears in a tab in the Editor window, so that you can easily compare it with your running app. Learn more at Capture layout hierarchy snapshots.
Support for Compose semantics in the Layout Inspector: In Compose, Semantics describe your UI in an alternative manner that is understandable for Accessibility services and for the Testing framework. In Android Studio Bumblebee, you can now use the Layout Inspector to inspect semantic information in your Compose layouts. When selecting a Compose node, use the Attributes window to check whether it declares semantic information directly, merges semantics from its children, or both. To quickly identify which nodes include semantics, either declared or merged, use select the View options dropdown in the Component Tree window and select Highlight Semantics Layers.
Design
Interactive Preview: Android Studio Arctic Fox launched with support to statically preview your composable functions in the Design / Split window of the Editor. In Bumblebee, we’ve expanded functionality to allow you to interact with certain components of your Compose layouts, to validate behavior without building and deploying the full app to a running device! To get started, navigate to a previewable compose function and click Start Interactive Mode in the Design / Split window. For more information see Interactive mode.
Interact with the Compose Preview to validate behavior
Animated Vector Drawables Preview: The Preview window is now also available when viewing vector drawables. When viewing a static drawable, you can use the preview window to change background options between “None”, “White”, “Black”, “Checkedered”, to view your drawable against different conditions. Animated drawables also provide the option to preview the animation at different speeds as well as backgrounds, to help you test animations before using them in your app. To learn more, see Animated Vector Drawables (AVD) preview.
Preview your animated vector drawables
Updated Device picker for design tools: To simplify designing your app for the diverse number of Android devices, we’ve updated the device picker in various design tool windows, such as Layout Editor and Layout Validation, with reference devices that reflect popular sizes of each device form factor. From phones to tablets, and Wear devices to Android TVs, it’s now easier to preview, validate, or edit your layout on screen sizes that are most representative of popular real-world devices. To learn more, see Change the preview appearance.
To recap, Android Studio Bumblebee (2021.1.1) includes these new enhancements & features:
Build and Deploy
Run Instrumented Tests in Android Studio using Gradle
Android Gradle Plugin Upgrade Assistant now updates API usage
Non-Transitive R classes on for new projects
New Device Manager
ADB over Wi-Fi
Emulator tool window enabled by default
Apple Silicon Support Update
Profile and Inspect
Jank detection track in Profilers
Profileable app profiling support in Studio Profilers
Inspect Jobs, Alarms, and Wakelocks in the Background task Inspector
Capture Layout Inspector snapshots
Support for Compose semantics in the Layout Inspector
Posted by Amanda Alexander, Product Manager, Android
We are excited to announce that Android Studio Arctic Fox is now available to download in the stable release channel. This latest release brings to life Jetpack Compose 1.0, Android's new toolkit for building native UI. The release also focuses on devices, including Wear OS, and helps with developer productivity, with features like a new Background Task Manager. We used your feedback to create this suite of new Android Studio features that will help empower the developer community to create high quality, modern apps across devices faster!
Note: As we announcedlast year, we adjusted our version numbering of Android Studio to match the year and version of the IntelliJ IDEA that Android Studio is based on, plus our own patch number. We will be using code names (in alphabetical order); the first is Arctic Fox and the next is Bumblebee (currently in canary).Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) updates Android Studio to version 2020.3 of the IntelliJ platform which adds a slew of new features including debugger interactive hints, VCS updates, and several new code editor enhancements to speed up your workflow. Learn more.
To support rapid design of modern UI, we added additional features for Jetpack Compose. Compose Preview lets you create previews of multiple components of your Compose UI to instantly see the impact of your changes across dimensions (such as themes, screen and font sizes, and more). The Deploy Preview to device feature enables deploying snippets of your Compose code directly to a device or emulator so you can quickly test small parts of your code. If you want to dive deeper into your Layouts, we added Compose support to the Layout Inspector to help you understand how your layouts are rendered. Additionally, we added Live Editing of literals so you can instantly see your Compose code changes in previews and when running your app on an emulator or physical device without the need for compilation.
For increased device support, we built a new Wear OS pairing assistant to simplify the pairing of Wear OS emulators with physical or virtual phones. To use the newest Wear OS version, you can now access the developer preview of the Wear OS 3 system image. When you run the Wear OS emulator, you will also find added support for the Heart Rate Sensor API. For apps targeting Google TV, we added the newest Google TV Remote Control features and updated the Google TV system images to reflect the latest UI design. Additionally, we have completed the development and testing workflow for the Automotive OS by enabling the emulator to use car sensor data to simulate driving use cases. For apps targeting tablets, we have updated all templates to support landscape out of the box. Whether you are developing for small or large screen devices, we have included new features to help you keep innovating and building amazing apps.
Lastly, in an effort to boost developer productivity, we have added features to help you work more efficiently. For example, we added lint checks for Android 12 to provide guidance on building apps for the next version of Android. To help you test your code, we added an Accessibility Scanner for Layout Editor so you can more easily identify accessibility issues in your layouts and the new Test Matrix lets you view test results in real time across multiple devices in parallel. Additionally, we added preview support for Apple Silicon (arm64) hardware and extended the emulator controls for wider coverage in testing. Lastly, for debugging, the new Background Task Inspector helps you to analyze your app's background workers.
Use the @Preview annotation to generate previews of Compose code and visualize the different configurations of multiple components (e.g. devices or themes). Compose Preview can make it simpler for you to construct a mental mapping of the composables in your code.
Compose Preview
Layout Inspector for Compose
For both apps written fully in Compose and apps with some Compose alongside Views, Layout Inspector makes it possible to get more details on your layouts and troubleshoot. For example, you will be able to see the parameters and modifiers passed to each composable. There is an option to turn on Live Updates to stream data from your device as you develop your app.
Compose Layout Inspector
Live Edit of literals
You can now quickly edit literals (strings, numbers, booleans, etc.) inline and see the immediate results on the change on screen (previews, emulator, or physical device), without having to compile.
Live Edit of Literals: edit strings and see it reflected immediately in Preview
Devices
Wear OS Pairing
The new Wear OS Pairing assistant will help walk you through the pairing process to make pairing Wear OS emulators with virtual or physical phone simple. Note that this feature assists with pairing with Wear OS 2 companion; support for Wear OS 3 will be coming soon. Learn more.
Wear OS emulator pairing assistant dialog
Phone + Watch emulators paired successful state
Developer Productivity
Background Task Inspector
You can use the new Background Task Inspector to visualize, monitor, and debug your app's background workers when using WorkManager library 2.5.0 or higher on a device running API level 26 and higher. You can access it by selecting View > Tool Windows > App Inspection from the menu bar. Learn more.
To recap, Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) Stable includes these new enhancements & features:
You can download the latest version of Android Studio Arctic Fox from the download page and download the Apple Silicon preview build here. If you are using a previous release of Android Studio, you can simply update to the latest version of Android Studio. If you want to maintain a stable version of Android Studio, you can run the stable release version and canary release versions of Android Studio Arctic Fox at the same time. Learn more.
We appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.
After more than a year in closed beta, we are happy to announce that Android Game Development Extension (AGDE) is now available for all game developers to download. This milestone release of Game Tools from the Android Studio team meets game developers where they are; AGDE adds Android as a platform target to Microsoft Visual Studio, making it easier to target Android with existing multi-platform Visual Studio game projects.
AGDE is part of the Android Game Development Kit, which includes both libraries and tools that support making great games on Android. AGDE is best suited for game developers that develop primarily on Microsoft Windows using Visual Studio to write C/C++ code. Game developers that do not fall under these criteria, but are using C/C++, should use Android Studio to develop for Android.
Alongside the release of AGDE 2021.1, we recently published case studies on how our partners, Epic Games and Electronic Arts found success using AGDE.
We built AGDE as part of our effort to address game developers facing issues in targeting Android with their cross-platform workflows. At the top of the list of issues was developers’ preference to remain in a single IDE instead of maintaining multiple projects for different platforms. AGDE enables this for game developers using Visual Studio by removing the need to switch between IDEs when switching between platforms. In addition, we wanted to solve pain points around existing Visual Studio tools for Android that are often dated or suffer from integration issues. Our team is committed to having AGDE support the latest versions of the Android SDK, and NDK as well as providing updated tools easily accessible from Visual Studio. Finally, we wanted to bring you quick access to some of the most useful Android Studio capabilities, built into AGDE. Therefore, we invested in creating seamless integrations to our most popular tools, such as Studio profilers, logcat, and the Android SDK and device manager. Overall, these features are designed to make you more productive in your day-to-day game development workflow.
Build with AGDE
After downloading and installing AGDE in a Visual Studio project, you can treat Android development as you would any other platform.
AGDE integrates with MSBuild to compile and link C++ code for Android.
Project build settings are configured using the standard Visual Studio property system. After the MSBuild process, AGDE uses Gradle to complete the build and package the project. This Gradle stage can be used to integrate Android libraries containing Java or Kotlin code into the final application bundle.
The Android SDK manager provides access to additional tools and frameworks to assist with building Android games.
The Android Virtual Device (AVD) manager allows you to launch directly into emulator snapshots so that you can have a repeatable test environment.
Debug with AGDE
AGDE supports deploying to, running on, and debugging with both an Android emulator and a physical device. Debug sessions run inside Visual Studio, using its standard interface for breakpoints, tracing and variable inspection.
AGDE interfaces with LLDB for debugging support.
Register views, and disassembly of native code allow you to set a breakpoint, and step right into the disassembly of your OpenGL. The assembly view shows the assembly in-line with the current C++, allowing you to step into or over each instruction as they are executed. This is useful for building context and understanding what is running on your device.
The memory view shows the current values within a block of memory. As we step through the running game, AGDE in Visual Studio automatically highlights the areas of memory that have changed. In the screenshot below we show where in memory the view matrix has changed, as indicated by the red text.
Sometimes when debugging isn’t enough to figure out what is going on, we know that having access to the logs can be helpful to dig deeper. The logcat tool allows for searching and filtering logs to pinpoint exactly the data you want.
Profile with AGDE
AGDE integrates with a standalone version of Android Studio Profilers. This profiler can be launched from Visual Studio and attached to a running game session.
The Android Studio Profilers display real time usage statistics for CPU, memory, network, and energy.
We added support for native memory sampling. Now you can better understand where your memory is going and how to optimize your game for a broader reach of devices.
Integrations
We know everyone has a unique build setup and there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. That is why we are investing in making AGDE compatible with various tools commonly used by game developers.
We partnered with Epic Games to integrate with Unreal Engine (UE 4.26.1+) to provide a seamless Android experience for Unreal Engine game developers.
We are working with Sony Distributed Build System (SN-DBS) to enable SN-DBS users to leverage the power of distributed builds for Android with AGDE (coming soon)
AGDE is compatible with Incredibuild, a distributed build tool.
Getting started
Download AGDE 2021.1 and see our documentation for additional details. To help you get to know AGDE quickly, we put together a few samples that demonstrate different ways you can use AGDE to configure your project.
Visual Studio IntelliSense features are compatible with AGDE. All current Android CPU architectures are supported: both ARM and Intel in 32-bit and 64-bit.
We appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Learn more about Android game development, and follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.
Microsoft and Visual Studio are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.
After more than a year in closed beta, we are happy to announce that Android Game Development Extension (AGDE) is now available for all game developers to download. This milestone release of Game Tools from the Android Studio team meets game developers where they are; AGDE adds Android as a platform target to Microsoft Visual Studio, making it easier to target Android with existing multi-platform Visual Studio game projects.
AGDE is part of the Android Game Development Kit, which includes both libraries and tools that support making great games on Android. AGDE is best suited for game developers that develop primarily on Microsoft Windows using Visual Studio to write C/C++ code. Game developers that do not fall under these criteria, but are using C/C++, should use Android Studio to develop for Android.
Alongside the release of AGDE 2021.1, we recently published case studies on how our partners, Epic Games and Electronic Arts found success using AGDE.
We built AGDE as part of our effort to address game developers facing issues in targeting Android with their cross-platform workflows. At the top of the list of issues was developers’ preference to remain in a single IDE instead of maintaining multiple projects for different platforms. AGDE enables this for game developers using Visual Studio by removing the need to switch between IDEs when switching between platforms. In addition, we wanted to solve pain points around existing Visual Studio tools for Android that are often dated or suffer from integration issues. Our team is committed to having AGDE support the latest versions of the Android SDK, and NDK as well as providing updated tools easily accessible from Visual Studio. Finally, we wanted to bring you quick access to some of the most useful Android Studio capabilities, built into AGDE. Therefore, we invested in creating seamless integrations to our most popular tools, such as Studio profilers, logcat, and the Android SDK and device manager. Overall, these features are designed to make you more productive in your day-to-day game development workflow.
Build with AGDE
After downloading and installing AGDE in a Visual Studio project, you can treat Android development as you would any other platform.
AGDE integrates with MSBuild to compile and link C++ code for Android.
Project build settings are configured using the standard Visual Studio property system. After the MSBuild process, AGDE uses Gradle to complete the build and package the project. This Gradle stage can be used to integrate Android libraries containing Java or Kotlin code into the final application bundle.
The Android SDK manager provides access to additional tools and frameworks to assist with building Android games.
The Android Virtual Device (AVD) manager allows you to launch directly into emulator snapshots so that you can have a repeatable test environment.
Debug with AGDE
AGDE supports deploying to, running on, and debugging with both an Android emulator and a physical device. Debug sessions run inside Visual Studio, using its standard interface for breakpoints, tracing and variable inspection.
AGDE interfaces with LLDB for debugging support.
Register views, and disassembly of native code allow you to set a breakpoint, and step right into the disassembly of your OpenGL. The assembly view shows the assembly in-line with the current C++, allowing you to step into or over each instruction as they are executed. This is useful for building context and understanding what is running on your device.
The memory view shows the current values within a block of memory. As we step through the running game, AGDE in Visual Studio automatically highlights the areas of memory that have changed. In the screenshot below we show where in memory the view matrix has changed, as indicated by the red text.
Sometimes when debugging isn’t enough to figure out what is going on, we know that having access to the logs can be helpful to dig deeper. The logcat tool allows for searching and filtering logs to pinpoint exactly the data you want.
Profile with AGDE
AGDE integrates with a standalone version of Android Studio Profilers. This profiler can be launched from Visual Studio and attached to a running game session.
The Android Studio Profilers display real time usage statistics for CPU, memory, network, and energy.
We added support for native memory sampling. Now you can better understand where your memory is going and how to optimize your game for a broader reach of devices.
Integrations
We know everyone has a unique build setup and there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. That is why we are investing in making AGDE compatible with various tools commonly used by game developers.
We partnered with Epic Games to integrate with Unreal Engine (UE 4.26.1+) to provide a seamless Android experience for Unreal Engine game developers.
We are working with Sony Distributed Build System (SN-DBS) to enable SN-DBS users to leverage the power of distributed builds for Android with AGDE (coming soon)
AGDE is compatible with Incredibuild, a distributed build tool.
Getting started
Download AGDE 2021.1 and see our documentation for additional details. To help you get to know AGDE quickly, we put together a few samples that demonstrate different ways you can use AGDE to configure your project.
Visual Studio IntelliSense features are compatible with AGDE. All current Android CPU architectures are supported: both ARM and Intel in 32-bit and 64-bit.
We appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Learn more about Android game development, and follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.
Microsoft and Visual Studio are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.
Posted by Mayank Jain, Product Manager
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Posted by Adarsh Fernando, Senior Product Manager, Android Studio
Posted by Marie Prezner, UX Product Design, Android Developer UX
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Posted by Lily Rapaport, Product Manager
