Эмулятор Android SDK: обзор, инструкции, установка

Android SDK – это эмулятор и среда разработки приложений для операционной системы Андроид одновременно. Программа занимает мало места на жестком диске и предоставляет впечатляющий функционал. Хотя ПО ориентировано на профессиональных разработчиков, его могут использовать и рядовые пользователи в качестве обычного эмулятора операционной системы. Так же смотрите аналогичный эмулятор Xamarin Android Player для разработчиков.

А вы знали, что данный эмулятор также называют «Android Studio».

Функционал эмулятора

Android SDK может эмулировать не только саму операционную систему, но и «железо». На выбор доступно множество виртуальных устройств с поддержкой Андроида:

1. Смартфоны;
2. Планшеты;
3. Телевизоры;
4. Умные часы;
5. Очки, шлемы дополненной и виртуальной реальности;
6. Бортовые компьютеры автомобилей;
7. Терминалы.

Также присутствует эмуляция различных технологий, например, Bluetooth, WiFi, 2G, 3G, Edge.

Встроенная среда разработки поддерживает написание кода программы с подсветкой синтаксиса и авто дополнением. Среди поддерживаемых языков программирования есть C, C++, Kotlin и Java. Можно одновременно скомпилировать несколько apk одного проекта, каждый для разного устройства и версии ОС. С помощью встроенного диспетчера можно отслеживать нагрузку эмулятора на систему.

Существует консольный режим для опытных разработчиков.

Интерфейс Android SDK

Программа имеет настраиваемый интерфейс, каждый пользователь может расположить любые элементы где угодно, а также выбрать цвет оформления. Сам интерфейс включает в себя такие главные элементы:

• Кнопки открытия и сохранения проектов;
• Переходы по шагам;
• Увеличение/уменьшение масштаба окна;
• Выбор apk-файла;
• Выбор эмулируемого железа и версии системы;
• Изменение разрешения экрана;
• Запуск/пауза эмуляции;
• Настройки и помощь.

Откатить изменения и вернуть изначальное расположение элементов можно в настройках.

Системные требования Android SDK

Для Windows официальные системные требования следующие:

• ОС Windows 7/8/10;
• Минимум 3 ГБ оперативной памяти для запуска, 8 ГБ рекомендовано;
• Дополнительно 1 ГБ свободной оперативной памяти для эмуляции и тестирования работы приложений;
• Минимум 2 ГБ свободного места на диске для установки, рекомендуется 4 ГБ для создания файла подкачки;
• Монитор с разрешением 1280 x 800 или выше.

Версии для Mac и Linux предъявляют почти аналогичные требования к аппаратной части компьютера, но имеют свои отличия в программной части. Mac:

• Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) или новее, но не выше 10.13 (macOS High Sierra);
• 1.5 ГБ свободного места для установки эмулятора;
• 500 МБ на диске для интегрированной среды разработки (опционально).

Официально версия Linux тестировалась на Ubuntu 14.04. Имеет следующие требования:

• Графическая оболочка GNOME или KDE;
• Библиотека GNU C (glibc) 2.19 или новее.

Эмулятор работает на 32 и на 64-битных системах.

Производительность

Программа сильно уступает аналогам в производительности, жертвуя ей в угоду точности. Соответственно, требования к железу в несколько раз выше. К другим недостаткам можно отнести:

• Отсутствие русcкоязычной версии;
• Нестабильная работа на Windows XP и старых версиях Mac OS X;
• Необходимость установки дополнительных пакетов Java JRE и Java SE Development Kit SDK;
• Не работает на процессорах без поддержки виртуализации.

В настройках программы можно выбрать ночную тему интерфейса.

Инструкция: Как установить эмулятор Android SDK на свой ПК?

Установка предельно проста. Загрузите установочный файл по ссылке ниже. Затем запустите его, 2 раза кликнув левой кнопкой мыши. В окне установщика ознакомьтесь с лицензией и нажимайте далее. Укажите путь установки. Выберите, какие версии Андроида вы хотите эмулировать. По умолчанию устанавливаются только новейшие варианты. Нажимайте OK и начнется установка.

Подробный видеообзор установки эмулятора Android SDK.

ВАЖНО: Чем больше компонентов будет выбрано при установке, тем больше потребуется места на диске.

Особенности эмулятора

Эмулятор имеет много преимуществ перед аналогами:

• Стабильность;
• Высокая производительность;
• Официальная техническая поддержка;
• Подробная документация и множество обучающих материалов;
• Встроенный файловый менеджер;
• Открытый исходный код;
• Поддержка стандартов GSM-телефонии;
• Тестирование созданных программ для Андроид;
• Поддержка виртуальных машин, например, Dalvik;
• Настраиваемый интерфейс.

Благодаря этим особенностям, Android SDK можно назвать самым функциональным в своей области. Сочетание средств разработки и возможности быстрого тестирования в одной программе определенно порадует разработчиков мобильных приложений. Рядовым пользователям, возможно, стоит обратить внимание на более простые аналоги.

What Is the Android SDK and How to Start Using It

Android SDK is a software development kit developed by Google for the Android platform. The Android SDK allows you to create Android apps, and you don’t need to be an expert to use it. In this tutorial, I’ll explain what the Android SDK is and how to get started with it.

Android SDK comes bundled with Android Studio, Google’s official integrated development environment (IDE) for the Android operating system. You can learn about Android Studio and the Android App Development Kit in another of my articles.

In this post, we’ll look at:

• What is the Android SDK?
• How to install the Android SDK
• What is the Android SDK Manager?
• What are the components of the Android SDK?

What Is the Android SDK?

The Android SDK is a collection of software development tools and libraries required to develop Android applications. Every time Google releases a new version of Android or an update, a corresponding SDK is also released which developers must download and install. It is worth noting that you can also download and use the Android SDK independently of Android Studio, but typically you’ll be working through Android Studio for any Android development.

The Android SDK comprises all the tools necessary to code programs from scratch and even test them. These tools provide a smooth flow of the development process from developing and debugging, through to packaging.

The Android SDK is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, so you can develop on any of those platforms.

How to Install the Android SDK

The Android SDK is optimized for Android Studio, and hence to effectively reap its benefits, you will need to install Android Studio. Having the Android SDK managed from within Android Studio is easier since support for languages like Java, Kotlin, and C++ is handled automatically. Not only that, but updates to the Android SDK are handled automatically by Android Studio.

To install the Android SDK from within Android Studio, first start Android Studio.

• From the Android Studio start page, select Configure > SDK Manager.

• If you already have Android Studio open, the SDK Manager icon is found on the top right corner, as shown below.

Install the required Android SDK platform packages and developer tools. A good start is to install:

• Android SDK Build-Tools
• Android Emulator
• Android SDK Platform-Tools
• Android SDK Tools
• Documentation for Android SDK

Click Apply, and Android Studio will install the selected tools and packages.

What Is the SDK Manager?

The Android SDK is composed of modular packages that you can download, install, and update separately using the Android SDK Manager. The SDK Manager helps to update new SDK releases and updates whenever a new Android platform is released. The SDK manager can be found in the top-right corner of the Android Studio screen, as shown below.

All that is required to follow the instructions provided, and the updates will be immediately downloaded to your environment.

What Are the Components of the Android SDK?

The Android SDK consists of an emulator, development tools, sample projects with source code, and the required libraries to build Android applications. Let’s look at the key components one by one.

Android SDK Tools

Android SDK Tools is a component of the Android SDK. It includes a complete set of development and debugging tools for Android, and is included with Android Studio. The SDK Tools also consist of testing tools and other utilities required to develop an app.

SDK Build Tools

Build tools are required for building components for building the actual binaries for your Android app. Always ensure your build tools component is up to date by downloading the latest version in the Android SDK Manager.

SDK Platform-Tools

Android Platform-Tools are used to support the features for the current Android platform and are necessary for Android app development. These tools interface with the Android platform on the device you use for testing. They include:

• Android Debug Bridge (adb): This is a handy command-line tool that lets you communicate with a device. The adb command allows you to perform device actions, such as installing and debugging apps. It also provides access to a Unix shell that you can use to run a variety of commands on a device.
• fastboot: This lets you flash a device with a new system image.
• systrace: This tool helps collect and inspect timing information across all processes running on your device at the system level. It’s crucial for debugging app performance.

SDK Platform-Tools are backward compatible, so you need only one version of the SDK Platform-Tools.

SDK Platform

For each version of Android, there’s one SDK Platform available. These are numbered according to the Android version (e.g. Android 7 Nougat) and an API version (e.g. API Level 24). Before you build an Android app, you must specify an SDK Platform as your build target. Newer SDK Platform versions have more features for developers, but older devices may not be compatible with the newer platform versions.

Google APIs

Google provides a number of exclusive Google APIs to make developing your app easier. They also offer a system image for the emulator so you can test your app using the Google APIs.

Android Emulator

The Android Emulator is a QEMU-based device-emulation tool that simulates Android devices on your computer, allowing developers to test applications on different devices and Android API levels, without needing to have physical devices for each. The emulator comes with configurations for various Android phones, tablets, Wear OS, and Android TV devices.

The Android emulator provides almost all of the capabilities of a real Android device. You can perform the following activities:

• simulate phone calls and text messages
• simulate different network speeds
• specify the location of the device
• simulate hardware sensors such as rotation
• access Google Play Store and much more

Often it is faster and easier to test your app with an emulator instead of using a physical device.

Conclusion

In this post, we looked at some of the basics of the Android SDK. The Android SDK is the only way to develop for Android devices. Fortunately, it contains extensive documentation, tutorials, samples, best practice guidance, and an array of tools for many different development tasks.

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Android SDK

Table of Contents

What Does Android SDK Mean?

The Android SDK (software development kit) is a set of development tools used to develop applications for the Android platform that has become Apple’s biggest rival in the smartphone space. The Android SDK includes the following:

Relevant documentation for the Android application program interfaces (APIs).

Sample source code.

Tutorials for the Android OS.

Techopedia Explains Android SDK

Every time Google releases a new version of Android, a corresponding SDK is also released. To be able to write programs with the latest features, developers must download and install each version’s SDK for the particular phone. The SDK essentially represents Android’s delivered toolkit for a specific version and technology of its operating systems.

The development platforms that are compatible with SDK include operating systems like Windows (XP or later), Linux (any recent Linux distribution) and Mac OS X (10.4.9 or later). The components of Android SDK can be downloaded separately. Third-party add-ons are also available for download.

Although the SDK can be used to write Android programs in the command prompt, the most common method is by using an integrated development environment (IDE). The recommended IDE is Eclipse with the Android Development Tools (ADT) plug-in. However, other IDEs, such as NetBeans or IntelliJ, will also work.

Most of these IDEs provide a graphical interface enabling developers to perform development tasks faster. Since Android applications are written in Java code, a user should have the Java Development Kit (JDK) installed.

In addition, experts sometimes talk about optimizing the use of SDKs for Android, for instance, using targeted versioning to eliminate the need for additional wrapped API calls, or may refer to SDK targeting as “value-added to an Android manifest” that can help with OS implementations, many recommending setting a target version and a minimum version in the manifest.

Other related resources include tips for optimized installation and the use of the Android SDK Manager.

IDEs and Android SDK

Another way to understand the utility of the IDE and why it may be favored over simple SDK use is to think about the ways that IDs abstract and facilitate the process of development.

One thing that the IDEs do, as implied above, is consolidate various tools into one single environment. For example, if an IDE provides functionality for a text editor, compiler and debugger altogether, (where each of those things would be treated separately in dealing with an SDK,) that offers evident benefits for the developer.

Experts also explain how IDEs, for example, Netbeans, create graphical user interface or more user-friendly versions of development environments that would be considered more manually or basically implemented in SDKs.

A good analogy might be the use of HTML to code webpages contrasted with the emergence of many platforms, (early ones including Dreamweaver, for example,) that provided GUIs over the HTML environment for implementation.

By abstracting the underlying tasks in this way, the GUIs make the tasks more accessible to a wider set of users, and can help to save time and effort. The IDE does this for the Android developer, although some argue that too many shortcuts compromises the core knowledge that the developer needs to be confident in a variety of environments.