Since 2013, Android Studio has been the official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Android app development. It has improved significantly since then and the latest version, Android Studio 3.0, is more efficient with a higher gradle build speed. However that’s not all. The most exciting news is that the latest version of Android Studio is integrate with Kotlin.

Support for Kotlin

One of the most notable announcements at the Google I/O 2017 was the release of Kotlin as the official language for Android app development. Kotlin is a modern and easy to learn, yet very powerful programming language that enhances the app development process.

At this years Google I/O, one presenter showed how 87 lines of code can be re-written in just one line with Kotlin. This is great news for seasoned developers as well as new comers who are looking to learn app development.

To develop apps with Kotlin, developers can use any Java IDE. What’s more is that Kotlin code can be added to existing projects and hence new features can be added to existing apps with the new programming

More language support

Google has bundled Kotlin support with Android Studio 3.0, allowing developers to immediately use it in their apps.

There are three options when it comes to using Kotlin programming language in your Android Studion 3.0. Theses have been explained below:

1. Developers can choose to enable Kotlin in the new project wizard and the generated activities will use it by default
2. Alternatively, when adding new activities to the project, developers can choose the language selector at the bottom to switch between languages from the source language dropdown.
3. Another option is to use the “Convert Java File to Kotlin File” feature on existing classes

Based on 2017.1.2 IntelliJ

Android Studio is based on the 2017.1.2 IntelliJ IDE and includes:

• parameter hints for method calls
• semantic highlighting
• smart conflict resolution
• & more

Support for Instant Apps

Android Studio 3.0 is the first release to support the creation of Instant Apps and includes the following new modules:

• Instant App
• Feature Module

These new features help developers in making their apps more modular.

Improved Emulator

There are exciting updates in the Android emulator. For the first time, Google is shipping emulator system images which contain the full play store. Furthermore, developers do not have to deal with updates to the Google Play Services, which will automatically update in the same manner as actual devices.

Java 8 Support

Built-in support for Java 8 language features and libraries are provided in Android Studio 3.0. You can learn more about the Java 8 language features here.

Better UI design

The layout editor and the layout inspector have both been updated. The editor includes better right to left support, new constraint features such as chains and barriers shown as warnings, which can be fixed by adding missing constraints.

Summary

These are just some of the new exciting features in Android Studio 3.0. If you are interested in Android app development and would like to get hands-on coding experience, then why not attend one of our Android app development courses, where you will learn about the latest tools and techniques.