Android Studio Bumblebee brings QR code pairing for wireless ADB, Apple silicon support for platform tools, and other improvements
Android Studio Bumblebee (v.2021.1.1) has now reached stable, giving developers new tools to design and build apps for Android. There are a lot of changes compared to the last big release in 2021. Reports indicate the new ADB over Wi-Fi via QR codes might be a little buggy, but others like instrumentation tests using Gradle, better window integration for the emulator in the IDE, new platform tools and build tools optimized for Apple’s snazzy silicon, and a new device manager — among alotmore.
This is a big update, and the full changelog is way too long to post here. Curious developers can get more details from theAndroid Studio release notes, but we do have a few noteworthy highlights. Developers that used the Bumblebee canary and beta releases might be also familiar with some of these changes.
The new Device Manager replaces the old AVD manager (where you accessed your emulator images) with a unified UI for virtual and physical devices — a much more consistent workflow. Relatedly, wireless debugging via a convenient QR code scanning pair method (for Android 11 and later) was also added, though some developers have been running into issues with it. More details on how to get that set upare available here.
Interactive previews are also enabled by default now, letting you play with things as you would on a device a little faster (with a few restrictions). And while Android Studio itself has supported Apple’s new M1 chips since last year, some underlying bits like the SDK platform tools (well-known as the bit required to manually sideload updates) and build tools are also now optimized for it.
Instrumented tests using Gradle are also getting a new unified test runner, and I’m going to act like I know what that means —seemslike you’ll be able to cut a dependency on external tests like IntelliJ Test Runner and avoid inconsistent results, but my brain freezes up a little as soon as I hear the word “Gradle.” (Gradle is scary.)
Other workflow conveniences include an updated device picker, vector animation previews, and a jank detection track in profilers, amonglotsof other profiling and inspection shuffling and changes that should make it faster and easier to track down issues.
Developers can download the update right now courtesy of Android Studio’s built-in updater (Help -> Check for updates), or you candownload it manually from Google itself.
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This article is sponsored by Total Wireless.
