Google has launched the second official incarnation of the Android Studio – its one-stop platform for building a mobile app.
The updates were announced at the Android Developer Summit on Monday by group product manager Stephanie Cuthbertson, who says it is a “gigantic release”, as Tech Crunch reports.
The all-in-one platform includes a code editor, analysis tools and emulators for all the platforms – everything you need to build an Android app.
There are a number of new and improved features in the second version for all the budding developers out there.
1. It’s all about speed
According to Google, the Android Studio 2.0 is all about speed.
“One of the most requested features we receive is to make app builds and deployment faster,” Cuthbertson says.
So now the development process is 2 to 2.5 times faster than before with the new studio featuring “massively accelerated build speeds”.
“For the integrated development environment to be delightful, it doesn’t just have to be stable – but amazingly stable,” Cuthbertson says.
2. You can see your changes in real-time
With the updates, there will be a new ‘instant run’ feature that allows developers to immediately see what changes in code have done to the final product.
Google says this is about mirroring the process of writing html, where you can simply reload the browser to see if the changes have had their intended effect.
According to Cuthbertson, this was a common problem faced by Android programmers.
“We listened to you guys and the truth was you were right,” she says.
“In order to iterate you need to quickly see how the app looks. Every minute you’re sitting around waiting, that’s a minute wasted.”
3. It’s easier to find out what you messed up
The new GPU Profiler has been implemented to try to help out with identifying performance problems and inefficiencies in the code.
“One of the big problems with graphics-intensive development is you’ll see a scene and you get a problem, and you’re not really sure exactly what caused it,” Cuthbertson says.
“So one of the things you’ll find in the GPU Profiler is you’re able to record and reply the entire GPU stream frame-by-frame.”
4. There are new emulators
The ecosystem of Android devices is vast, and as Tech Crunch reports, trying to emulate apps on each of the various platforms has long been a pain point for developers.
The new emulators with this update claim to be faster than any of the other services, meaning you can now quickly see what your app would look like on the whole gamut of Android products.
5. There’s more to come
This marks the fifth major release of the Android Studio since its launch out of beta last year, and Cuthbertson says this “tremendous momentum” will only continue.
The Android Studio 2.0 is now available on the Android Studio canary channel, which is being used to sniff out any bugs or issues.
It will then be officially rolled out widely in early next year.
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Denham Sadler is a former editor of StartupSmart. He was previously a journalist at the publication and has worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, the Saturday Paper and the ABC. In his spare time he likes puns and jaffles.
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