Google has released Android Studio 2.0, the second major iteration of "the official IDE (integrated development environment) from Google".
The new IDE contains a number of new features, such as Instant Run, which allows the developer to see changes to their app in real-time, similar to Apple's Playground. There's also a new Android Emulator that promises to be three times faster than the old one.
Here's the full changelog:
Instant Run - For every developer who loves faster build speeds. Make changes and see them appear live in your running app. With many build/run accelerations ranging from VM hot swapping to warm swapping app resources, Instant Run will save you time every day.
Android Emulator - The new emulator runs ~3x faster than Android’s previous emulator, and with ADB enhancements you can now push apps and data 10x faster to the emulator than to a physical device. Like a physical device, the official Android emulator also includes Google Play Services built-in, so you can test out more API functionality. Finally, the new emulator has rich new features to manage calls, battery, network, GPS, and more.
Cloud Test Lab Integration - Write once, run anywhere. Improve the quality of your apps by quickly and easily testing on a wide range of physical Android devices in the Cloud Test Lab right from within Android Studio.
App Indexing Code Generation & Test - Help promote the visibility your app in Google Search for your users by adding auto-generated URLS with the App Indexing feature in Android Studio. With a few click you can add indexable URL links that you can test all within the IDE.
GPU Debugger Preview - For those of you developing OpenGL ES based games or apps, you can now see each frame and the GL state with the new GPU debugger. Uncover and diagnosis GL rendering issues by capturing and analyzing the GPU stream from your Android device.
IntelliJ 15 Update - Android Studio is built on the world class Intellij coding platform. Check out the latest Intellij features here.
It wasn't all that long ago that the open source IDE Eclipse was Google's recommended solution for Android development. The firm finally released a stable version of its own offering in December, 2014.
For a deeper dive into the new features, check out Google's post about it.
Source: Android Developers Blog
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