You can use any IDE you want (I use IntelliJ IDEA), and you do not have to use Java either. You can develop in Scala, or via the NDK in about any language you w

You can use any IDE you want (I use IntelliJ IDEA), and you do not have to use Java either. You can develop in Scala, or via the NDK in about any language you want. Then you can do a lot without using the SDK. But AFAIK you need a small GUI-wrapper around you native code to interact with the user.