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Nilay Jayswal for Neverinstall

Posted on • Originally published at blog.neverinstall.com

Android Studio on Cloud: Code, Test & Deploy

Taking systems to a crawl

Android Studio is one of the usual suspects when it comes to hogging the system resources of developers. The sharp recommended system requirements and the application structure make it an ideal candidate for destroying system speed, often leading to criminally slow computers.

Try Android Studio here.

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And don’t forget the Gradle nightmare; the excruciatingly long build times it brings.

As a developer, time is of the essence, the longer it takes to develop an application, the longer it will take for ideas to materialize. Sluggish performance and delayed results are suboptimal outcomes in a world headed literally towards Mars.

Developers often stumble upon several possible fixes that can accelerate Android Studio, however, either the changes are negligible or the noticeable ones are short-lived. Fixes such as offline working to speed up Gradle by avoiding repository connections, installing SSDs, or even disabling plugins are often impractical, ineffective, or expensive.

So, how?

Native on the cloud

If we can move to Mars, surely the cloud isn’t such a bad bet.

We need to understand the importance of solving resource-hungry applications such as Android Studio and offloading the heavy lifting. Solutions such as the cloud and virtual machines are making it possible by eliminating the barriers of system requirements, delays in build times, and even inefficiencies with pre-requisites such as set up and installation.

Contrary to popular belief, an experience closer to native can be achieved over the cloud. Hosting over remote servers can deliver a practical version of the platform to developers, enabling app development without traditional hindrances. An ideal way to achieve this is through application streaming.

Essentially, you stream Android Studio installed on a remote server similar to a Netflix show and interact with it like it is installed on your local machine.

The cloud enables platform-agnostic access to AS from any device and location over an internet connection, reducing the interaction of AS with the local machine to a minimum. The local machine, while streaming AS remains only a node to connect peripherals with the application and the entire development process is now available on the cloud.

Test waters without switching boats - Emulators

Well, you’ve built your app, but does it work? Time to bring out your good old Android device, plug it into your local machine, load your freshly brewed code, install it, and now you can see if your long hours bore fruit. Simple, right?

Not impressed? It does sound arduous and full of effort but then there are emulators.

Write, run, simulate

The results of your code are only visible when you run it on a device, but that is too much work. Enter emulators! Simulate your Android environment using these ingenious programs to test your code, without downloading, installing, or even having a device!

Emulators allow developers to accelerate their process by enabling faster testing and results. However, they are quite participative in dwindling productivity themselves. Emulators, similar to the Android Studio platform itself, are quite notorious for consuming system resources, especially the memory while simulating an Android device.

The best of both worlds - Android Emulators on Neverinstall

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At Neverinstall, we have supported Android development for a long time. A large number of our users are active Android developers, giving us active feedback regularly to ensure that we deliver the best to them. And one of the most frequent requests from our users was support for emulators within the platform, so we brought it.

Android Studio Emulator Support

Android Studio on the Neverinstall platform now supports emulators out-of-the-box.

We clubbed unparalleled performance of a native-like Android Studio instance over the cloud with support for emulators to enable developers to create Android Virtual Devices for testing their apps as they code.

Since the emulators are installed on the cloud similar to the Android Studio platform itself, developers now get access to unhindered development, testing, and deployment.

Deploy your Android apps with Neverinstall today! Sign up here.

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