Not testing, developing. The IDE talks to the emulator via ADB. It does not have to talk just to the emulator, though. You can replace it with a physical devic

Not testing, developing. The IDE talks to the emulator via ADB. It does not have to talk just to the emulator, though. You can replace it with a physical device, the IDE doesn't care. When you replace the emulator with a physical device, it gets much better.