Out In Android Development? Crucial Tools To Take Into Account

In today’s world, Android is emerging on the constant basis, everything we see and function through its innovations is affecting almost every corner of our lifestyles. Smartphones or tablets, Android plays a vital role in many aspects. Apart from users, Android offers a ton of opportunities for developers. Yes, the versatile, open platform is used by millions of users and developers worldwide. Are you starting your career in Android development or even if you are familiar with the default Android Emulator will know that starting the emulator and running an app can be an extremely slow and tedious process.  

Fortunately, there are also plenty of app developer tools to get you started and plenty of support. Day by day the number of these tools are increasing all the time, which each one continues to become more efficient and intuitive. The following post compiles a list of Android development resources and tools so you can find all you might need in one place.

Best Android developer tools

Android Studio

No list of development tools would be complete without Android Studio. The number one choice for the majority of Android app developers, is the official IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Android. They are looking to make basic apps in-keeping with Google’s Material Design and with access to all the advanced features of the platform.

Any developer will spend most of their time on The IDE: it acts an editor for the chosen programing language (Android Studio supports Java, C++ and now Kotlin, though for Android –  Java is the official language), APK files created by a compiler and a file system for arranging your project. It may quite interest you to know that an XML editor and design view for arranging elements on the screen. The tool, in particular, offers an entire suite of additional tools too- some of which we’ll examine in this post – and thankfully most of this will now come bundled together as a single download.

AVD Manager

Bundled with Android Studio, AVD is considered as one of the most important tools for professionals across the globe. The tool is considered important because it means that you can test your apps quickly without having to constantly install them on physical devices. In fact, AVD manager works according to different screen sizes, specifications and versions of Android.

It means, you get can idea on your creation’s look on any given device and thereby ensure support across the most popular gadgets.

Android Device Monitor

ADB is a little command-line tool that is used to communicate with or run commands on a connected Android device (virtual or physical). Available with Android Studio, you won’t need to worry about.

Unity 3D

It may quite interest you to know that the tool, in particular, doesn’t come pre-installed with Android Studio. It is a game engine and IDE for cross-platform game development. Being easy to learn, the tool comes with a large variety of features for game development. While it’s possible to create a game with Android Studio, Unity lends itself to that kind of work much more readily and will save you considerable amounts of time and headache. In addition to this, you can even use it to create virtual reality apps for Daydream, Cardboard or the Gear VR.

Unreal Engine

Being a game engine, people who are interested in cross platform, Android is the best alternate for those. If anyone wants full-featured game development like Unity, Unreal offers easy support for Android and is actually graphically superior along with being open source. Many android app developers believed that unity has slightly better built-in support for mobile and 2D creations. In point of fact, it is the preferred option for most mobile game development and growth. Choose anyone to go with as they all are free and there’s no reason you can’t give them a shot.

GameMaker studio

This one is another tool used again by game developers, this time for 2D games. The tool turns out to be a little easier than using Unity or Unreal 4 as it enables one to come up with apps with effective zero code. Therefore, you need to get grip on beginner-friendly GML or ‘GameMaker Language’, if you want to add a little more customization into this.

However, what you get in ease-of-use, you will lose power and functionality to some extent. It’s also worth noting that GameMaker isn’t free, although there is a free trial available for those that want to give it a shot.

Conclusion

Apart from the tools listed above, there are many more options out there such as PhoneGap, Cordova or IntelliJ IDEA for building simple apps, or Android and Blustacks. So that’s all for now! Keep watching the space to know more!