Google has officially launched Android Studio 1.0 – the official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for developing Android apps. Android Studio is the first stable version of its IDE and comes with new set of features that will make it easier for potential and existing app developers to make better Android apps.
Some of the key features of the latest IDE include, a first-run setup wizard which will install the right Android SDK, set up the
development environment settings, and create an optimized emulator for testing apps. Studio 1.0 also includes a set of code templates to get new app developers started.
Developers will be able to edit and preview Android layouts across multiple screen sizes, languages, and even API versions. Another key feature is that developers will be able to monitor the memory usage of their apps over time.
Android Studio uses a Gradle-based build system that provides a lot of flexibility and extensibility.One of the advantages of this is that any updates to Android Studio won’t impact the apps built on the IDE.
Using Android Studio developers can make their apps utilise the cloud-based backends in a couple of clicks. This extends the features of the apps, for example, by allowing data storage on the cloud.
Android Studio supports Google Cloud Platform features out-of-the-box, which include Google App Engine, Google Cloud Endpoints and Google Cloud Messaging. As these features come out-of-the-box, users won’t have to install additional plug-ins. Popular Android apps such as Snapchat and Pulse are already using the Google Cloud Platform.
Android Studio is available for download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
