Core features of Android Studio

Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a software application that can be used by programmers to efficiently code their programs. Developers can run an IDE locally on a laptop or PC, or even in the cloud. Some examples of built-in IDE features include syntax highlighting, automatic formatting and indentation of code, and tools to compile, test, and debug, all within one application.

Android Studio core features

Android Studio is the official IDE designed specifically for Android application development, and has several features that enable developers to seamlessly build their applications. It was announced at the 2013 Google I/O conference, and serves as a replacement for the Eclipse Android Development Tools (E-ADT). This IDE can be run on Windows, macOS and Linux-based operating systems.

Android Studio is based on IntelliJ IDEA (a powerful IDE for Java software development), and incorporates a lot of their code editing and developer features. Some core features of Android Studio include:

Compose design

Create and preview dynamic layouts on multiple screen sizes using Jetpack Compose.

Code completion

The intelligent editor comes with code completion for many programing languages, such as Kotlin, Java, and C/C++.

Live edit

Visualize code and resource changes instantaneously, without restarting the application.

Gradle-based flexible build system

Customize builds for various Android devices within a single project, and analyze the performance of builds using the Build Analyzer feature.

Android device emulator

Enables developers to test how their applications will run on different Android devices such as phones, tablets, chromebooks etc.

WearOS Pairing Assistant

In addition to the core features above, Android Studio also comes with several other useful features. The WearOS Pairing Assistant allows developers to pair multiple watch emulators with a single phone. The IDE also comes with code templates for common application features, and integration for application deployment to Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Applications that are built in Android Studio can easily be published on the Google Play Store by compiling into an Android Package Kit (APK) file or Android App Bundle.