Google has released an update to its Android operating system IDE, Android Studio 3.2. The IDE update was first announced at Google I/O ‘18 in May. Since then, the Android team has refined and polished more than 20 new features and focused on improving the quality of the release.
The company is recommending that all developers use Android Studio 3.2 in order to transition to using an Android App Bundle, which is the new app publishing format. According to the Android team, early adopters have seen between 11 and 64 percent in app size saving by using app bundles over the legacy APK.
Android Studio 3.2 introduces the Energy Profiler, which is a set of tools for diagnosing and improving how your app is using battery life. “Better device battery life is one of the top most user requests, and with the Energy Profiler in Android Studio 3.2, you can do your part in improving device battery life by making sure your app is using the right amount of energy at the right time,” Jamal Eason, product manager for Android, wrote in a post.
It also adds a features called Android Emulator Snapshots, which allows developers to take a snapshot of the current state of the emulator, saving the states of the screen, apps, and settings. They will then be able to resume or boot into the snapshot in under two seconds, which the company describes as a game-changing feature for app development.
“By using Android Studio 3.2, you can also develop for the latest technologies ranging from Android Jetpack, to the latest in Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) APIs with Android Slices,” Eason wrote.
In addition, the release adds 20 other features as well as under-the-hood quality refinements. Other features include Slices support, sample data, CMakeList editing support, and a What’s New assistant.
