Android Studio was first announced at a Google I/O conference in 2013 and was released to the general public in 2014 after various beta versions. Prior to its release, Android development was handled predominantly through Eclipse IDE, which is a more generic Java IDE that also supports numerous other programming languages.
What is Android Studio?
Android Studio’s job is to provide the interface for you to create your apps and to handle much of the complicated file-management behind the scenes.
What is Now for Update Android Studio?
Android Studio 3.0 has been released to stable. Download it here.
Recent updates
If you've set your Android Studio update channel to canary, the SDK Manager should now show an update to receive version 26.2.0 of the Android Emulator. QnA is Updated with the Android Systems New things. This is the first release to include the new Quick Boot feature, which makes the Android Emulator start up much faster based on a snapshot of your previous AVD instance.
Quick Boot is enabled by default for all AVDs. Although the first time you start an AVD it must perform a cold boot (just like powering on a device), all subsequent starts are fast and the system is restored to the state at which you closed the emulator (similar to waking a device). Learn more about Quick Boot here.
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Android Studio 3.0 RC 2 now available
Android Studio 3.0 RC 2 is now available in the Canary, Dev, and Beta channels. This update includes general bug fixes, including a fix to properly update from previously installed versions of the IDE on Linux and Windows.
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Android Studio 3.0 RC 1 now available
Android Studio 3.0 RC 1 is now available in the Canary, Dev and Beta channels. Note: This release does not include patches. So, you must download a full installation. This update includes fixes for the following public issues ...
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Android Studio 3.0
Here’s the rundown of what version 3.0 brings to the table:
- Kotlin Programming Language — Kotlin
is now officially supported in Android Studio, including features likes code completion and syntax highlighting.
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Java 8 Language features — To update your project to support the new Java 8 Language toolchain, simply update your Source and Target compatibility levels to 1.8 in the Project Structure dialog.
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Layout Editor — The component tree in the Layout Editor has with better drag-and-drop view insertions, and a new error panel.
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Adaptive Icon Wizard — The new wizard creates a set of launcher icon assets and provides previews of how your adaptive icon will look with different launcher screen icon masks. Support for VectorDrawable layers is new for this release.
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XML Fonts & Downloadable Fonts — If you target Android Oreo (API Level 26 and higher) for your Android app, you can now add custom fonts & downloadable fonts using XML.
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Android Things Support — A new set of templates in the New Project wizard and the New Module wizard to develop for the Android Things platform.
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IntelliJ Platform Update — IntelliJ 2017.1 release, which has features such as Java 8 language refactoring,
parameter hints, semantic highlighting, draggable breakpoints, enhanced version control search, and more.
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Instant App Support — You can add Instant Apps features to your project.
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Build Speed Improvements — A rare breaking API change in the Android Gradle Plugin to improve scalability and build times is one of reasons the version number has jumped from 2.4 to 3.0. If you depend on APIs provided by the previous Gradle plugin you should validate compatibility with the new plugin and migrate to the new APIs. To test, update the plugin version in your build.gradle file.
- Google’s Maven Repository — To facilitate smaller and faster updates, Android Studio 3.0 utilizes Google’s Maven Repository by default instead of using the Android SDK Manager to find updates to Android Support Library, Google Play Services, and Firebase Maven dependencies. Used in combination with the latest command line SDK Manager tool and Gradle, Continuous Integration builds should migrate to Google’s Maven Repository for future Maven repository updates.
- Google Play System Images — The emulator system images for Android Oreo now include the Google
Play Store, allowing developers to do end-to-end testing of apps with Google Play and keeps Google Play services up-to-date in Android Virtual Device (AVD). The emulator system images are signed with a release key so you will not be able to get elevated privileges. You can use the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) emulator system images for that.
- OpenGL ES 3.0 Support in Android Emulator — OpenGL ES 3.0 support for Android Oreo system images along with significant improvements in OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics performance for older emulator system images.
- App Bug Reporter in Android Emulator — An easier way to generate a bug report with the Android Emulator with all the necessary configuration settings and space to capture your repro steps.
- Proxy Support in Android — A user interface to manage the HTTP proxy settings used by the emulator.
- APK Debugging — Debug an arbitrary APK. As long as you have a debuggable version of your APK, you can use the new APK Debugging features to analyze, profile, and debug the APK. If you have access to the sources of your APK, you can link the source to the APK debugging flow for a higher fidelity debugging process.
- Layout Inspector — Better grouping of properties into common categories, as well as search functionality
in both the View Tree and Properties Panels.
- Device File Explorer — The new Device File Explorer in Android Studio 3.0 allows you to view the file and directory structure of your Android device or emulator. As you are testing your app, you can now quickly preview and modify app data files.
- Android Test Orchestrator Support — When used with AndroidJUnitRunner 1.0 or higher, the Android Gradle plugin 3.0 supports the use of the Android Test Orchestrator. The Android Test Orchestrator allows each of your app’s tests to run within its own Instrumentation.
- Android Profiler — A brand new suite of tools to help debug performance problems in your
app. Once you deploy your app to a running device or emulator, click on the Android Profiler tab and you will now have access to a real-time & unified view of the CPU, Memory, & Network activity for your app. Each of the performance events are mapped to the UI event timeline which highlights touch events, key presses, and activity changes so that you have more context on when and why a certain event happened.
- APK Analyzer Improvements — Additional enhancements to help you further optimize the size of your APK.
This release also includes many stability and performance fixes in addition to the new features (full release notes). Google didn’t mention its plans for the next version.
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