10 Tools For More Efficient Android Development

The Android platform is constantly growing, and in order to stay on top of it you need to know which tools will help you develop more effectively. Check out these ten useful Android development tools that will shave off time and ensure that your app's quality is high from the start.

Android Studio

Android Studio is a full-featured IDE that was created to make developing for Android as easy as possible. It comes with a range of features, including the Android Gradle plugin, which makes setting up and managing your app code much easier and safer than other IDE's. With the plugin, you can also use the CI system for Android, which ensures that you can install your app on any computer or smartphone on which you run it. You can install Android Studio on Linux and Mac computers, and while it's already available on Windows, it's still in beta. But don't worry, because the final release will make the process of developing for Android a lot less painful and will certainly help you cut down on the amount of time you spend on the things that don't matter.

Kotlin

Android offers you a wealth of options for creating Android apps. You can create Android apps in Java or C++. But there's another option: Kotlin. With Kotlin, you can create Android apps without having to create a Java API first. This is great if you are developing a game with high performance requirements. Android Studio With Android Studio you can create Android apps in a hurry and enjoy great tooling, for free. Android Studio is a popular app for creating Android apps and it provides a great productivity boost. It comes with a powerful IDE, and you can easily code UI elements with your fingers and add important code like reflection. Dart Dart is an open-source language developed by Google. It is used in Android Studio and provides you a lot of powerful functionality.

Android Test Tools

As developer, you're responsible for designing your app, but don't forget that the user experience also depends on testing it. There are plenty of tools that can help you with this, including the Zunit test framework and the xUnit framework. A simple app will have no need for such a framework, but more complex, with tight integration, will need both. However, as your team grows, it's going to become more and more challenging to test your app's performance, so you may need a tool that can automate this process as much as possible. Android Studio comes with the unit testing feature, which works perfectly fine, but you may want a more robust tool that can handle bigger apps and other use cases.

Buildozer

Buildozer is a Python-based IDE with extensive support for Android development. Built on top of Slime, Buildozer's IDE is fully compatible with Android Studio and Eclipse. It supports IntelliJ, Eclipse, NetBeans, JMH and PyCharm. Zam Zaman describes how you can use this IDE. "The Buildozer Android IDE is very powerful and well built. It has many functionality such as inspection, code completion, code generation, refactoring, code folding, refactoring to next function, code comments, live views, and options management etc. Fastlane Fastlane is an app and service automation tool designed to make Android app development faster and more efficient. It automatically code-reviews, paves way for clean and unit tests and deploys and promotes app to Google Play.

Gradle

Gradle has quickly become the most popular project management tool for developers. By using this tool, you can manage your project and its dependencies, to ensure that you don't miss any little issue in the process. Gradle is an open source Java IDE that creates smart links so that everything you want to refer back to can be found right there. Also, it provides project and release management tools that are able to keep your project running smoothly. Apache Cordova If you are a mobile app developer that works with the Android platform, it's quite common to have to use a companion app on iOS in order to give your phone users access to the app. In order to do this, you are going to need a mobile development platform that can run Android apps on your Apple smartphone.

ArtFlow

By cutting down time and development cycles, ArtFlow saves you from having to code on different devices, and does so to a degree that if you had developed on a regular old PC and wanted to move to Android, it wouldn't make much difference. Developers with all sorts of backgrounds and skill levels can use the tool and its API, and the game itself, called Articulate, is a pure game of shapes, colors, and sounds. There is a free version of ArtFlow, but Pro is available for $20 per month. Android Studio If you haven't heard about Android Studio, it's time to rectify that situation. Sure, it's pre-installed on some devices (like Nexus phones and tablets), but Android Studio is still a great tool.

Adobe XD

One of the most popular and most widely used UI design software for mobile devices, Adobe XD lets you create cross-platform applications for iOS and Android. With XD, you can edit Photoshop's layers, working with vectors, drawing in 3D. It's the only comprehensive, cross-platform UI design tool that also allows you to create games. Unity Unity makes development much faster by providing fast and high-end tools that don't slow down the overall development process. These tools are also mobile optimized, so you can continue developing and iterating on your apps on the go. You can also make games with Unity using 3D assets and templates. You can also integrate it with popular free and paid plugins.

GenyMotion

GenyMotion is an application that lets you control various aspects of your Android phone's screen, such as aspect ratio, colors, and animations. The app is very user-friendly, letting you set the maximum number of controls and add widgets to your phone screen in just a few seconds. It is also a good way of testing out your animations and controls, as they will never get in the way of each other. You can test all of them right in the app. GenyMotion uses a multitasking feature that works well with Android, letting you use the app even while you're doing other things on your phone. You can even put the device into the split-screen mode while GenyMotion is running, and switch back to normal operation after a while.

Emulator 25.3.6

Android emulator 25.3.6 gives you a quick and convenient way to test your apps against the latest and greatest version of the Android OS. It allows you to run the same device code as your actual device, offering a lot of advantages to testing purposes. Key Features Runs on Android 4.4 KitKat. Quickly find and select an emulator Enables high-performance direct-mode debugging Works on both ARM and x86 architecture Multiple resolution support. Let's Go Snazzy Android Studio Android Studio is the official IDE for Android. It is based on IntelliJ IDEA, with a smaller download size and excellent performance. It lets you develop beautiful apps and mobile games that are consistent with their platform.

Conclusion

Android's importance in the mobile game is never-ending, and it’s important to keep up with the latest tools and techniques that the platform is famous for. Whether you want to create apps for the Android platform or are already in the process of making it happen, here are some tools that will improve your workflow and give you greater peace of mind.