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A better Android emulator

manymo.com

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Re: A better Android emulator

#41

Post by hayksaakian »

manmal wrote: post #23
peteforde wrote: post #15

I've been putting off porting an iOS app to Android specifically because of my fear of testing on so many devices. While I'm sad that there are 43 (and counting) possible variations, this looks solid and helpful — I'm much more likely to attempt my port project now.

Get a low-end (HTC Legend), a mid-end (HTC Desire / Moto Droid), and a high-end (Samsung Galaxy Nexus or S-II/III) device, and you are good to go. Also get a cheap tablet if you need to support that. Always develop on the lowest end device as a rule, and the optimizations you apply to make it usable on it will make the app super snappy on higher end devices. Choose Android 2.2 as your target platform and you include…

by moto droid do you mean the original moto droid? if so, i'd think by now the 2+ year old handset would be considered low end

Re: A better Android emulator

#43

Post by stoney »

georgemcbay wrote: post #22

This could be useful for mobile web developers who don't want to install the full Android tools, but both this and the recent VirtualBox based Android system are (for native app developers who have a CPU with VT-x, EM64T, and XD -- basically all modern Intel chips) inferior to just using the Intel-x86 based emulator that has shipped since Android SDK API 10. Both of these projects would have been extremely awesome to…

These projects are still extremely awesome for those of us running older CPUs!

Re: A better Android emulator

#44

Post by EricButler »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #13
dj2stein9 wrote: post #11

If you want a fast way to run Android, you can also use a VirtualBox image, it is significantly faster than the emulator in the SDK: http://www.buildroid.org/blog/

I've found the official Intel-based emulator images (2.3+ only) plenty fast. Details here[0] but the tl;dr is: * Open SDK manager, install Intel image for your preferred SDK version and the "Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager" from the Extras section * Find the HAXM installer in SDK/extras and run * Create Intel-based AVD [0] https://developer.android.com/tools/devices/emulator.html

Don't forget to enable GPU Acceleration too. I've posted about this here: http://codebutler.com/2012/10/10/configuring-a-usable-androi...

Re: A better Android emulator

#45

Post by CRidge »

Finally got an emulator running :-D

"Start quickly." - not today, but hopefully in the future?

"Run smoothly." - ehmmm... Nope! Smooth as barbed wire...

"Are lightweight." - perhaps, but that makes little difference if it fails the first two bullet points.

Fantastic idea - had it worked. Let's hope it will with some tweaking :-)

Re: A better Android emulator

#46

Post by spartango »

kmfrk wrote: post #25

I'll be the token Opera guy in the thread and reiterate that they have a mobile simulator as well: Mobile Emulator. It's annoying that it doesn't come with default iOS device settings, though, but it's a great alternative to running a server to test on.

This(manymo) doesn't seem primarily meant to be used for web development, but rather Android native application development. Opera's emulator is designed to emulate a mobile browser, nothing more.

Re: A better Android emulator

#48

Post by gcb »

here's the interesting bits from the (gasp PDF) TOS.

User Applications and Data Users may upload a binary code version of an Android software applications to the Service in order to use its emulation functionality. The Service will automatically extract certain information from these application files to improve the functionality of the Service, such as the name of the application, its size, SDK version, and icon. You will retain ownership of your software applications and any information we extract from your files (the “User Data”). You hereby grant us a royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, distribute, communicate, perform, and display your User Data solely for the purpose of providing Service to you. Users are solely responsible for the accuracy, quality, integrity, legality, reliability, appropriateness, and for obtaining or maintaining all necessary intellectual property rights to the User Data. - 2 - The Service will not run your software applications unless you specifically choose to do so. You may delete an application you have uploaded to the Service at any time.

Re: A better Android emulator

#49

Post by vitek »

This is really cool, nice work. That said, many of the problems I've experienced have more to do with weird behavior in the OEM code (i.e. TouchWiz) than core android stuff. It would be beyond awesome if there was a way to launch OEM versions by simply entering the model number of the device.
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