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I am new to Android Development and I would really appreciate some advise on how to develop android. I am currently using Eclipse with Android SDK installed on my Macbookpro.

I am using the newest API, 3.1. However I noticed that the android emulator is not very stable (it keeps crashing sometimes) and the emulator is insanely laggy (my Macbookpro has icore5 and 4Gb ram with AVD ram set to 1Gb plus I am using snapshot). I gave 3.0 a shot but it's still very slow especially with respect to start up time.

How many of you still develop in 2.3.3? Is that the most stable version right now? Are most devices still using 2.3.3?

How many of you actually develop on an actual device? Do most of you just suck it up to the emulator?

In addition, as an avid Vim user, I find eclipse to be really heavy for development. I am much more accustomed to developing on the command line. I also use Git pretty heavily. I am currently using eclim but it's another dimension in it's functionalities. How many of you stray away from the eclipse IDE framework?

EDIT: Ok I didn't know 3.0 was for tablets. I was just reading the intro parts on developer.android.com, which I am not particularly fond of. What is the best book then for doing android development?

xjq233p_1
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3 Answers3

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You ask too many questions at the same time, but here is something that might interest you about share of different sdk version in the android market (for apps in the category Entertainment) :

  • Android 2.2 58,4%
  • Android 2.1 20,8%
  • Android 2.3.3 9,3%
  • Android 1.6 4,9%
  • Android 1.5 4,6%
  • Android 2.3 0,5%
  • Android 2.0.1 0,1%
  • Android 1.1 0,1%
  • Android 1.0 0,1%
  • Android 2.0 0,0%

My stats may not seem so relevant but almost no one till now uses android 3.0 and above. It'snice to be compatible with it but your target and min sdk (in your manifest) should be lower if you want more than a few thousands users.

Personnally, I use a 2.2.1 device from archos and I would not upgrade it above just to be able to test what most android users have on their device.

I used to be an emacs fanatics for years and switched to Eclipse 2 years ago for giving Java courses. And really, after 2 years I would never come back to emacs although I loved it but Eclipse, once you get used to the fact the it is missing 6 letters keyboard shortcuts, is really very very very productive.

Close your unneeded projects, use working sets, and tune eclipse memory settings, it will help.

Learning Git though.

Oh, and by the way, if you want the fastest solution to test your programs, you should consider testing on a real device. It's far more efficient than the emulator. Personnaly, I like to use dropbox to copy files from eclipse to my android. Then I can install it within one click from dropbox, using settings >> Application to remove old apps when needed.

The only problem I have is that my app is not generating enough revenue to allow me to follow android 's new SDK, buy hardware to test it with honeycomb, unfortunately.

Regards, Stéphane

Community
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Snicolas
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Using 2.3.3 is not about stability. 2.3.3 is the phone version of Android while 3.1 is the tablet version. Hopefully they will be merged in 4.0. Anyways i used to develop using 1.6 as long as i don't need the new features to reach as many devices as possible... its probably time for 2.1: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

mibollma
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From my experience you should use Android 2.2. I have run into very few bugs with the emulator and graphical layout of the xml files. Also if you walk into any AT&T store most of the phones right now will ship with Android 2.2. Android 3.0 is for tablets only. Your 2.2 application will still work on tablets.

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