14 DAY TRIAL // Google announced over the weekend the launch of another version of Android Studio. Although it's a beta release, Android Studio 2.0 Beta is important for developers because it brings significant new features and improvements.
According to Google, one of the new features added in Android Studio 2.0 Beta, Instant Run enables developers to edit code much faster.
Also, a brand-new emulator that is faster than most real devices has been included in this update, which comes with a new user interface.
Google even added App Indexing and testing so that developers can re-engage with their users. While in the first preview of Android Studio 2.0 devs could add indexing code stubs into their code, the beta release allows them to test and validate their URL links in their app all within the IDE.
Since Google had already previewed Instant Run last year, this beta release is focusing on a brand-new feature which is called Cold Swap.
New Cold Swap feature implemented
Cold Swap allows developers to restart the whole application quickly. This feature is available when devs deploy to targets with API level 21 or above.
Google has also offered a few more details on the new Android emulator, which includes fixes and small enhancements in this beta release.
One of the most significant changes is the updated rotation controls on the emulator toolbar and added multi-touch support to help test apps that use pinch and zoom gestures.
In order to take advantage of the multi-touch feature, devs must hold down the Alt key on their keyboard and right-click their mouse to center the point of reference or click & drag the left mouse button to zoom.
Last but not least, Google stated that this beta release is near stable quality, and should be relatively bug-free. Naturally, if you find any issue in this build, you are encouraged to let Google know about it so that they can fix it.
