Another major change is to Instant Run, which is a command that reduces the time to update an app.
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According to Google, the new Android Emulator is three times faster in CPU, RAM and I/O than its predecessor. With the stable version of Android Studio 2.0, Google hopes these new features will help developers create better apps, leading to a faster workflow for them. “With many build/run accelerations ranging from VM hot swapping to warm swapping app resources, Instant Run will save you time every day”.
The most prominent addition is Instant Run, something the company has been refining in previews over the past year. The integrated development environment (IDE) is now available to app developers as a stable release, a month ahead of Google’s developer conference. You can then test and validate your app indexing code in Android Studio. “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”, wrote Eason.
Android Studio 2.0 was first unveiled in November 2015 during the Android Developer Summit and the beta version was released in February. Finally, the new emulator has rich new features to manage calls, battery, network, GPS, and more. Android Studio proved to be a huge success, and has been used to create a staggering 1.6 million apps to date. It also has a new user interface and sensor controls, letting you you drag and drop APKs for quick installation, resize and rescale the window, use multi-touch actions (pinch & zoom, pan, rotate, tilt), and so on. The testing of an app with the emulator or on an Android device paves the way for the Cloud Test Lab to run through a series of tests against a portfolio of physical devices which are hosted in Google’s data centers.
Another new feature in Android Studio 2.0, Cloud Test Lab, enables developers to test their apps across a wide range of devices and device configurations at scale in the cloud.
That being said, once an app is ready, it can be tested through Google’s Cloud Test Lab, which will ensure apps have zero bugs and problems before being rolled out for everyone.
GPU Debugger Preview: If you are developing OpenGL ES games or graphics-intensive apps, you have a new GPU debugger (in preview) in Android Studio 2.0.
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“Android Studio is built in coordination with the Android platform and supports all of the latest and greatest APIs”, Eason said.
