1. Android Studio
No list of Android development tools would be complete without Android Studio. This is the official
IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Android, making it the
number one choice for the majority of developers looking to make basic
apps in-keeping with Google’s Material Design and with access to all the
advanced features of the platform.
The IDE is where any developer will spend most of their time: it
acts as an editor for the chosen programming language (Android Studio
supports Java, C++ and now Kotlin,
though Java is the official language of Android), a compiler that can
create APK files and a file system for arranging your project. It also
includes an XML editor and ‘design view’ for arranging elements on the
screen. Android Studio 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. In fact, it also
comes bundled with the Android SDK itself, though you will still need to
download and install the Java JDK separately. You should also check out
our full Android Studio tutorial for beginners.
Developing with Java and the Android SDK does have a somewhat steep learning curve, but in terms of integration, support and features Android Studio can’t be beaten.
2. AVD Manager
The AVD Manager tool
is bundled with Android Studio. AVD stands for ‘Android Virtual
Device’, so essentially this is an emulator for running Android
applications on your PC. This is useful because it means that you can
test your apps quickly without having to constantly install them on
physical devices. More importantly, the AVD Manager allows you to create
lots of different emulators with different screen sizes, specifications
and versions of Android. This means you can see what your creation will
look like on any given device and thereby ensure support across the
most popular gadgets. Performance is getting better all the time,
especially with the fast virt mode, which runs an Intel version of Android on your PC and removes the need for instruction level emulation.
3. Android Device Monitor
Another built-in Android development tool, the Android Device Monitor
allows you to monitor your device or virtual device during runtime and
get access to information such as how many processes are running on what
thread, network stats, the LogCat and more. It’s great for testing the
performance of your apps and seeing what’s going on under the.
4. Android Debug Bridge
The ADB
shell is a useful little command-line tool that you can use to
communicate with or run commands on a connected Android device (virtual
or physical). It comes with Android Studio and for the most part you
won’t need to worry about it. Every now and then though, you’ll be
following a tutorial and find you need to open it up. To do so, navigate
to the platform-tools folder of your Android SDK installation or
whichever folder adb.exe is located and open up a command line (Shift +
RMB > Open Command Window Here).
5. Unity 3D
Unity 3D is
the first of our recommended tools that doesn’t come pre-installed with
Android Studio. It is a game engine and IDE for cross-platform game
development. Unity is easy to learn and 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. You can even use it to create virtual reality apps for
Daydream, Cardboard or the Gear VR! Check out our introduction to Unity3D for more.
6. Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine is
also a game engine and is a alternative option for those interested in
cross-platform, full-featured game development. Like Unity, Unreal
offers easy support for Android and is actually graphically superior
along with being open source. That said Unity has slightly better
built-in support for mobile and 2D creations and is the preferred option
for most mobile game devs. Which one you ultimately decide to go with
is your call and a they are both free, there’s no reason you can’t give
them both a shot. Start here if you want to learn how to write a 3D game for Android using Unreal Engine.
7. GameMaker: Studio
GameMaker: Studio
is another tool for game developers, this time for 2D games. This is a
little easier than using Unity or Unreal 4 and enables you to create
apps with effectively zero code. If you do want to add a little
more customization though, then you can get to grips with the very
beginner-friendly GML or ‘GameMaker Language’.
However, what you get in ease-of-use, you lose to some extent in
power and functionality. 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. Check out our GameMaker: Studio tutorial for beginners for more information.
8. B4A
B4A (or Basic
for Android) is a lesser known Android development tool from Anywhere
Software, focused on ‘rapid’ development. As the name suggests, this is
an IDE and interpreter that allows developers to create apps using the
BASIC programming language. For those that aren’t familiar with BASIC,
it’s essentially a much simpler, procedural programming language that
reads closer to regular English. Despite essentially being a one-man
project, B4A manages to pack in a lot of useful advanced features,
including wireless debugging over Bluetooth, a visual editor for adding
and arranging views and more. It’s not free but it’s how I got started
on Android and I highly recommend it.
You can do pretty much anything that you would do with
Java, but a lot more quickly and with less boilerplate. Any performance
penalty seems minimal. That said, it’s still worth learning the official
method for creating apps and especially if you hope to use specific
libraries (though that said, Java libraries can be wrapped for
Basic4Android). This is especially important if you ever hope to sell
your IP to another publisher. Interested, then check out our full introduction to Basic4Android.
9. AIDE
It would seem that Android developer tools have a fondness for acronyms! AIDE is ‘Android IDE’ and is unique to this list in that it runs on Android. That means that you can create apps using your phone or tablet and then test them right there on that same device.
Obviously this lacks some of the advanced features of Android Studio (okay, a lot of
them) and there’s no real advantage to using this over a more
fully-featured Android development tool. Where it comes in handy though
is for learning Java and the Android SDK. The ability to follow
tutorials with highlighted code and then test them in real time is a
real boon for those struggling to get started. It’s not free and whether
or not it offers good value is up for debate; but it is certainly at
least worth looking into. For more, check our article on how to start building Android apps using AIDE.
10. Visual Studio With Xamarin
Visual Studio is Microsoft’s IDE which supports a range of
languages including C#, VB.net, JavaScript and more with extensions.
Using Xamarin,
which now comes bundled in, it’s also possible to create cross-platform
apps using C# and then test on multiple devices connected to the cloud.
It’s free to use and a good choice if you plan on releasing a utility
app for both Android and iOS and don’t fancy writing your code twice.
It’s also useful for those that are already familiar with C# and/or
Visual Studio. One downside however is that it is considerably less
convenient to access and use libraries written in Java and as with any
alternative, you lose some of Google’s support and advanced integrated
features.
11. Eclipse
In the days before Android Studio, developers made do with Eclipse
as the primary Android development tool. This is a general IDE that
supports multiple different programming languages, including Java with
the Android SDK. Unlike Android Studio, Eclipse does not offer this
support ‘out of the box’ and requires a bit more setting up as a result.
Official support has also been dropped by Google, so really there’s no reason to
opt for Eclipse over Android Studio. I include it here as you might
find it comes up from time to time when you’re doing your own research.
If a tutorial is based on Eclipse, you can essentially presume it is
very dated and move on.
12. GitHub
GitHub is an
online tool that you can use in order to share projects and also keep
track of multiple versions and ‘forks’ of those projects when you’re
working in a team. It’s handy for backing up your work, for
collaboration and for finding code samples and tutorials you can work
through. For beginners, your exposure to GitHub will likely be limited
to downloading sample projects that you can reverse engineer. If you
ever work on a large app as a team though, this is a developer tool that
you’ll need to become very familiar with.
13. Other Android development tools
As well as the tools listed above there are many more options out there such as PhoneGap, Cordova or IntelliJ IDEA for building simple apps, or Andyroid and Blustacks
if you need Android emulation without installing Android Studio and the
AVD Manager. Developers will also need to get to grips with a range of
other software to supplement their coding activities. You might consider
using Photoshop or GiMP for example in order to edit images, or Illustrator for high definition vector art. Maybe you like the idea of using a wire-framing design tool such as InVision to design your app’s layout, or maybe you’d rather sketch it up by hand. Maybe you’ll use Blender to create 3D models for your Android games or maybe you’ll use FL Studio 12 to compose some backing tracks. My advice? Don’t do it all yourself but rather use something like Fiverr.com or UpWork and work with freelancers.
Tons of programs can be used as Android development
tools and the options that are right for you will depend on your work
style, preferences and aims. Hopefully this list has given you a good
introduction to some of the most fundamental tools out there, so that
you can dive in and get started.
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