Have you tried Instant Run with Android Studio 2.0? You can build your code deltas and re-deploy your app, even restarting the current Activity you were on bef

Have you tried Instant Run with Android Studio 2.0? You can build your code deltas and re-deploy your app, even restarting the current Activity you were on before. This has made worlds of difference for me when tweaking custom, finicky UI pieces as you describe. It's on the same order of magnitude of speed as the web devs F5-ing their browsers.