Google announces Android Studio 2.0 with a faster Android emulator, Instant Run and more

BY Evan Selleck

Published 24 Nov 2015

Android Studio 2.0

Recently, Google took part in the Android Dev Summit and showed off the newest version of its Android Studio, officially unveiling version 2.0 to the world.

Google opened the gates for its android Studio 1.0 back in 2014, and has since been releasing new versions of the integrated development environment (IDE) ever since, with the release of version 1.5 launching just last month. With this newest iteration, version 2.0, Google’s launched it in a preview mode for now, which can be run in parallel to the official, stable 1.5 launch.

According to Google’s product manager for Android, Stephanie Cuthbertson, Android Studio 2.0 is between two and two-and-a-half times faster for building code in a full build of an app, and can be upwards of 50 times faster when dealing with incremental updates for a build. With a new features called Instant Run, developers will see their changes in code running in a “near instant,” which means developers can keep running their app and code at the same time, watching the changes unfold as they go.

You can see it in action below:

Google’s faster and more improved Android emulator was unveiled at the same time as Android Studio 2.0, but it’s actually not specifically available in this (Canary) release. However, when it does launch, which will be in a subsequent release, developers will take advantage of software with a new user interface, and an overall boost in performance. It will have full keyboard controls as well, a long-standing request from developers.

Android Studio 2.0 Android emulator

As far as when a stable release of Android Studio 2.0 will see the light of day, that remains to be seen.

[via VentureBeat]