In Google I/O 2013, Google revealed an IDE – Android Studio – especially designed for Android Application Development. That time, it was used by few developers for creating demo applications – nobody wants to share their application which was created using a beta version IDE, there was a possibility for getting stuck in mid of development because of problem(s) created by a beta release IDE.
Now, its been more than a year. And, Android Studio is still in beta phase, undergoing many updates and features are being added.
Things are changing, and developers are now migrating from Eclipse/ADT to Android Studio. Many projects, which were previously created in Eclipse are migrated to Android Studio. All new updated libraries, on GitHub, are now available for Android Studio.
If you search for a problem related to new Android APIs then StackOverflow and related Google Groups are now suggesting solutions based on Android Studio.
From developers point of view, Android application development must be moved from Eclipse/ADT to Android Studio. It is high time to take initiative to adapt this technology rather than sticking to the previous one. One more clear reason is that with an update of ADT, Eclipse users feel some trouble and it takes huge time resolving that. Now, just think how much trouble have you undergone with this error?
Android ADT version required 20.0.0 and above
Right now, Android Studio is offering many features that Eclipse fails to provide. Some of them are
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- Smart Resource Management: Creating layout, string, dimen and other resources are way much easier – done by Alt+<enter>
- Smart Resource Creation: Its easy to create Image Assets for each screen sizes (ldpi, mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi, xxhdpi and its -v variants)
- Smart Coding: Android Studio is based on IntelliJ. And with this, it brings smartness in coding style. It suggests developers for better logic and provide a naming convention based variable names. Replaces resource values with unfriendly @string/some_value
- 9-patch Support: Android Studio is now providing support for 9-patch images inside it. Now, you don’t have to open 9-patch tool separately to create/modify any image
- Smart screen designing: Provides a view where developers can code in XML and see its effect on screen layout in side pane.
- Integrated VCS: Version Controlling System is integrated inside it and keyboard shortcuts are available. So, with few keys developers can sync projects on their respective Git or SVN repository.
- There are many other features which would come handy after using Android Studio.
However, Android Studio have nothing for NDK support. But, as per our research we think Google is waiting to integrate and test the NDK support before releasing the first version of Android Studio.
Android Studio now supports NDK. It can be installed from SDK Manager embedded with Android Studio.
Here is a quick comparison between Android Studio and Eclipse ADT also available at Android Developers official website
So, if you are not using NDK, then switch to Android Studio.