The two-day Android Dev Summit is in full swing and with it comes the announcement of Android Studio 2.0, Google’s second generation integrated development environment (IED) for its mobile platform.
Stephanie Cuthbertson, group product manager for Android Studio, said Google wanted to build on the foundation it has laid over the past two years – a high level of stability – and focus on speed. Android Studio 2.0 appears to do just that as the build is said to be up to 2.5 times faster than previous releases.
What’s likely to receive the most praise from developers, however, is a new feature called Instant Run. With it, devs can see the results of coding changes – both on an emulator or a physical device – almost instantly, just as they would when writing HTML. New projects created with Android Studio 2.0 will work with Instant Run automatically while those built in earlier versions for Ice Cream Sandwich and later can be modified to use the feature.
Google also made a point of highlighting its new GPU Profiler tool that’ll let devs record entire OpenGL sessions and see changes as they happen on a frame-by-frame basis. This could be a powerful tool to help hunt down performance issues and the like, especially for those that build graphic-intensive apps.
Although it’s not quite yet ready for prime time, Android Studio 2.0 is available as a preview through the Canary release channel. No word yet on when it’ll hit the stable channel.
https://www.techspot.com/news/62888-google-announces-android-studio-20-major-focus-speed.html
