4 ms·

As odd as it may seem, I cringe every time I think about developing on Android. It's not the development that gets me. Honestly, I can't stand the emulator.

As odd as it may seem, I cringe every time I think about developing on Android. It's not the development that gets me. Honestly, I can't stand the emulator. It takes so long to boot up, and is such a resource hog when running. The iPhone emulator is also a resource hog, but I can close it without anticipating a 2 minute bootup when I build my application.

dannyr 15y ago
I hate the Android emulator so I test on a device. Device testing on Android is way, way easier than on iOS.
- coob 15y ago
  > Device testing on Android is way, way easier than on iOS. Once you've got over the pain of setting up a provisioning profile and developer certificate, what in particular is easier on Android? Or is that your only concern? Debugging on iOS is a one click thing once that's set up.
  - daleharvey 15y ago
    The provisioning profiles are a huge pain, I regularly switch between computers / wipe my computers and every time getting started with iOS is enough hassle for me to put it off a few weeks Part that its a split, android has a shell which can massively aid debugging, Xcodes integration with gdb seems better / easier than the android debugger, for me that still swings it 70/30 towards android
    - coob 15y ago
      Switching between computers is easier than it once was, in Xcode just export your developer profile from the organiser.
ksetyadi 15y ago
You only need experienced it once for a day, if you want to. Do you restart your emulator every time you compile/build your app? You don't have to. Once the emulator run, you can build and run your application into emulator within no time.
- phamilton 15y ago
  The problem with that is it is still a pretty big resource hog. It's fine when I'm on my iMac, but on my MBA/2GB/1.4Ghz it just brings my system to a crawl.
  - codenerdz 15y ago
    Forget about the emulator, I wouldnt want to run Eclipse on anything with 2GB of RAM
davidwparker 15y ago
Every Android developer I know (myself included) has a variety of Android devices that they actually test on. It's a lot faster, and much more realistic.
ibisum 15y ago
Get the x86 emulator installed. It boots in a second and is damn, damn fast. The reason the standard emulator sucks is because its emulating an ARM device - the x86 emulator has no such restraint. Its a HUGE difference in flow.
mrich 15y ago
1) enable USB debugging on your Android device 2) connect it to your computer with the USB cable 3) deploy your app from Eclipse Took me one minute and I could test the app instantly on the device.
lut4rp 15y ago
Yes, because the Android emulator is actually an emulator. The iOS "emulator" is a simulator. It doesn't emulate the ARM instructions or run an actual OS instance. The Android emulator does. Of course, the best option is to connect your Android device and test/debug on the device itself.
udp 15y ago
It's a shame the Android emulator doesn't use x86 and wrap the host OpenGL APIs. Currently it emulates ARM (with qemu IIRC?) and then has the emulated ARM processor emulate OpenGL with "PixelFlinger". I'm another Android developer who only ever tests on a device. I wonder if running Android x86 in something like VMWare might be better?
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  I'd worry about relying on Android-x86 at the moment as it's not an officially backed project from any OEM. However, Intel and Google have promised first-class support for x86 soon; so virtualized Android will likely be more trustable at that point. FWIW, the Google TV (Android 3.1) SDK can run in KVM on Linux (current Google TV hardware is Atom-based); some of the work is already there.
bitwize 15y ago
1) Get an Android phone and enable USB debugging on it. 2) Plug it in. 3) Use adb as normal. I'm sorry, but if you hate the Android emulator (I find it slow but tolerable in a pinch), then it's easy to use a real device to do development on.

dannyr 15y ago

I hate the Android emulator so I test on a device. Device testing on Android is way, way easier than on iOS.

coob 15y ago
> Device testing on Android is way, way easier than on iOS. Once you've got over the pain of setting up a provisioning profile and developer certificate, what in particular is easier on Android? Or is that your only concern? Debugging on iOS is a one click thing once that's set up.
- daleharvey 15y ago
  The provisioning profiles are a huge pain, I regularly switch between computers / wipe my computers and every time getting started with iOS is enough hassle for me to put it off a few weeks Part that its a split, android has a shell which can massively aid debugging, Xcodes integration with gdb seems better / easier than the android debugger, for me that still swings it 70/30 towards android
  - coob 15y ago
    Switching between computers is easier than it once was, in Xcode just export your developer profile from the organiser.

ksetyadi 15y ago

You only need experienced it once for a day, if you want to. Do you restart your emulator every time you compile/build your app? You don't have to. Once the emulator run, you can build and run your application into emulator within no time.

phamilton 15y ago
The problem with that is it is still a pretty big resource hog. It's fine when I'm on my iMac, but on my MBA/2GB/1.4Ghz it just brings my system to a crawl.
- codenerdz 15y ago
  Forget about the emulator, I wouldnt want to run Eclipse on anything with 2GB of RAM

davidwparker 15y ago

Every Android developer I know (myself included) has a variety of Android devices that they actually test on. It's a lot faster, and much more realistic.

ibisum 15y ago

Get the x86 emulator installed. It boots in a second and is damn, damn fast. The reason the standard emulator sucks is because its emulating an ARM device - the x86 emulator has no such restraint. Its a HUGE difference in flow.

mrich 15y ago

1) enable USB debugging on your Android device 2) connect it to your computer with the USB cable 3) deploy your app from Eclipse Took me one minute and I could test the app instantly on the device.

lut4rp 15y ago

Yes, because the Android emulator is actually an emulator. The iOS "emulator" is a simulator. It doesn't emulate the ARM instructions or run an actual OS instance. The Android emulator does. Of course, the best option is to connect your Android device and test/debug on the device itself.

udp 15y ago

It's a shame the Android emulator doesn't use x86 and wrap the host OpenGL APIs. Currently it emulates ARM (with qemu IIRC?) and then has the emulated ARM processor emulate OpenGL with "PixelFlinger". I'm another Android developer who only ever tests on a device. I wonder if running Android x86 in something like VMWare might be better?

ConstantineXVI 15y ago
I'd worry about relying on Android-x86 at the moment as it's not an officially backed project from any OEM. However, Intel and Google have promised first-class support for x86 soon; so virtualized Android will likely be more trustable at that point. FWIW, the Google TV (Android 3.1) SDK can run in KVM on Linux (current Google TV hardware is Atom-based); some of the work is already there.

bitwize 15y ago

1) Get an Android phone and enable USB debugging on it. 2) Plug it in. 3) Use adb as normal. I'm sorry, but if you hate the Android emulator (I find it slow but tolerable in a pinch), then it's easy to use a real device to do development on.